Cabal Standard Capture

Yo Guys.

I floated this on the Discord - but I appreciate stuff gets lost there pretty quickly in the Make fun of Zrothum spam.

Cabal Warfare - specifically Standard capture is a large part of FL's end game these days.  But as things stand is quickly becomes a stick to beat people with.

Ideas I think would help:

 - Increasing Defences / -ac on Standard guardian.  These things go down way to quickly in todays high damage environment.  I'd be less inclined to increase HP - as that would probably only hurt the classes that aren't able to kill it quickly currently.

 - Some sort of passive damage on the Standard Guardian.  Classes with decent weapon defences can pretty much ignore the damage that comes out from the Guardian, allowing them to be full HP if they need to switch into PK mode when someone comes along - Giving them something similar to Fireshield or Steel Shards would mean that nobody gets to just take the standard for free.

• Cool down on taking standard when it has been retrieved.  Having been on both sides of the problem, i think it is crap when a standard gets retrieved, possibly at the risk of death, and by the skin of your teeth, and it is gone again before you've regenned half your health.  This becomes a particular problem when you are outnumbered - as you can have one opponent getting the guardian low before you've even returned, and then the standard is literally instantly gone.  Give the Standard Guardian an instant restore and return to it 'full' status once the standard is returned, and then a 5 min CD before the standard can be taken again.

I like the last idea. +1

Good ideas.

Like the first and second ideas. Maybe these are the solutions to making cabal warefare more balanced for the majority of classes.

Though I'd definitely disagree with the last.You're expected to defend the altar with your life. Two vs one is supposed to be a disadvantage. If you make it super easy to retrieve and recover it becomes nearly pointless to risk your life taking it to begin with. Especially vs classes that can easily retrieve like portaling clerics, gating healers etc. There needs to be a lingering downside to losing it.

3 hours ago, tassinvegeta said:

Though I'd definitely disagree with the last.You're expected to defend the altar with your life. Two vs one is supposed to be a disadvantage. If you make it super easy to retrieve and recover it becomes nearly pointless to risk your life taking it to begin with. Especially vs classes that can easily retrieve like portaling clerics, gating healers etc. There needs to be a lingering downside to losing it.

I think the 5 minute cool down is a good idea.

I don't see how giving a very short period of breathing room after recovering your standard makes it "super easy to retrieve and recover". You still have to recover it, and 2 v 1 is still going to be a real disadvantage. Also, five minutes is not a very long time in game.

Recently I was retrieving a cabal standard and the enemy cabal member did not even try to stop me, they just sat at my own cabal guard getting it down to awful waiting for me to retrieve so they could immediately get my standard again - I think this is stupid.

It also makes the game a bit more accessible for people who don't have hours and hours to play. It means they have a chance to do their duty by defending and retrieving, but they don't have to constantly log out with their standard in the hands of their enemy due to RL interference.

1 hour ago, Nekky said:

I think the 5 minute cool down is a good idea.

I don't see how giving a very short period of breathing room after recovering your standard makes it "super easy to retrieve and recover". You still have to recover it, and 2 v 1 is still going to be a real disadvantage. Also, five minutes is not a very long time in game.

Recently I was retrieving a cabal standard and the enemy cabal member did not even try to stop me, they just sat at my own cabal guard getting it down to awful waiting for me to retrieve so they could immediately get my standard again - I think this is stupid.

It also makes the game a bit more accessible for people who don't have hours and hours to play. It means they have a chance to do their duty by defending and retrieving, but they don't have to constantly log out with their standard in the hands of their enemy due to RL interference.

Wonder if he was doing this because it was easier to get your standard than fighting you for whatever reason. Why didn't you fight them to prevent him from doing just that? Fighting is part of cabal warfare not avoiding it...

The game has also made it harder to prevent someone from retaking there standard by not allowing spells on it so I can see why some classes are better off letting someone retake in order to regain it more quickly.

On that last note, I feel the game should actually favor those whom have time to play. From cabal warfare to equipment. Else what's the point of logging in and putting hours into it? Every other game functions this way. Though I feel FL has found a good medium for both types of players.

59 minutes ago, tassinvegeta said:

Wonder if he was doing this because it was easier to get your standard than fighting you for whatever reason. Why didn't you fight them to prevent him from doing just that? Fighting is part of cabal warfare not avoiding it...

The game has also made it harder to prevent someone from retaking there standard by not allowing spells on it so I can see why some classes are better off letting someone retake in order to regain it more quickly.

On that last note, I feel the game should actually favor those whom have time to play. From cabal warfare to equipment. Else what's the point of logging in and putting hours into it? Every other game functions this way. Though I feel FL has found a good medium for both types of players.

I think FL will always favour people who have more time to play.

However, we have to face the reality that the average age of the player-base today is 10-15 years older than when player numbers were at an all time high. People have jobs, families and commitments they didn't have back then and play time is much more limited - Imms included.

The point of logging in and putting in hours is (or should be) that you enjoy playing the game.

If we want these people to stick around and play seriously I think we need to implement a few changes of this nature to make it feasible to log on and have fun even if you don't have 2-3 hours to spare.

@Anume or @Erelei any thoughts? Its great to get all the positive responses from players. Who would have seen foxx and fireman in agreement in a thread!

12 minutes ago, English lad said:

@Anume or @Erelei any thoughts? Its great to get all the positive responses from players. Who would have seen foxx and fireman in agreement in a thread!

That's a nice attempt at manipulation there, if I didn't know you I would say you were a woman (feminists don't get mad plz, just a joke).

Either way, neither myself nor Trick are any authority on anything in this game. I just happen to be good at PK and he just happens to play OP combos.

Exactly. I can only relay information and opinion off of my own personal experiences at caballed 50 life and f0xx can only share his from being at level 42 grinding for that full malform on lowbies. 

Capture the flag back and forth at that speed isn’t really fun for either side, honestly. Taking cabal powers is a great tactical move, but when your opponent can get it back and get out of Dodge and you just take it back. What’s the fun in that?

I personally find the capture the flag portion of cabal warfare pretty boring. In fact, more often than not I won't even attempt the standard unless they are no where to be found. I'd rather just fight the player. Although, there are a few instances where I have no choice but to take the standard to feel competitive.

1 hour ago, Fireman said:

Exactly. I can only relay information and opinion off of my own personal experiences at caballed 50 life and f0xx can only share his from being at level 42 grinding for that full malform on lowbies.

Man if you knew how much XP malforms gain at that level from kills you would know how lame of a comeback that was, but still, I'll give you thumbs up for trying.

Capture the flag at cabal warfare is annoying but much needed to force some people to fight now and then, but some modifications could be good. 

If we are going to have a timer on how soon a standard can be taken back, the cabal guard should be made passable during that timer.

The main problem I see is that many players will simply not defend, regain the standard and then log off in the cooldown timer. If there is an easy way out, you can rely on people taking it.

And foxx is correct as to malform feeding. Def not worth it with non-50s.

Whatever, lol.

If you've successfully retrieved - whats wrong with logging off? You shouldn't automatically just get to take someone's standard because they have hit the end of their time.

Really like the last idea...don't like the others.

I think instead standard guards should deal no damage at all. I hated being an invoker where I would lose 30% of my hp killing it...then I have to run when he shows up 10 ticks after I attacked it. I'd rather taking the standard be a "waiting game" where if you fought the guard for X ticks, you got the standard. No advantage to high output, high defense at all. Its a time game.