Cabal Warfare - Armies

I think we can all agree that the Armies system in FL isn't the most interactive in the world.  Given that Cabal Warfare is basically the 'End Game' for most people, I think that this particular mechanic could do with a refresh.

I'm just spitballing ideas here - and obviously what i'm describing would need some code work from Erelei, so that is always a limited resource.

Problem (IMO): Armies is essentially non-interactive - you send your armies off and other than a little bit of micro-managing patrols that is basically it.  From a Single Player perspective it is just a boring grind of watching the numbers move very slowly.  From a Multiplayer perspective it just becomes about who can be logged in longest.

I'd like to suggest something that can be a bit more interesting Single player wise, whilst also adding in some Multiplayer interaction and impact.

• My suggestion would be that we scrap the current system, other than the fact that there are 'Capture' Points in each zone, and you need a majority to own the zone.
• My idea would be that a Fortress at a Capture point would become a mini area that you can enter from the room it is in.
• You can only enter zones that you are at war with, or that you hold.  The fortress would be a small area, with two entrances - one in the heart of the fortress (defender) the other outside it (attacker)
• Have the Fortress manned by appropriate RP, level 50 mobs, with a tough mob as the commander.
• Using the Attack command would now spawn a flag which appropriate attacking mobs load at, and try and attack the fortress.  Opening the fortress gate requires your mobs to be in the room the gate is in, and no guarding mobs - so you can't just clear mobs yourself to take a fortress, you need to have summoned at least one set of troops.
• Once the gate is open you can attack the Lord mob, alongside any troops you have summoned. Taking the zone requires killing the Lord Mob.
• Defending players can spawn defending mobs at the gate, in the same way as attacking mobs, and can also choose to attack and kill the players / mobs that are attacking the Fortress.

Obviously this is theoretical - and totally dependant on how viable it would be for Erelei / Builders to make it.

I welcome thoughts and feedback! The only thing I would ask is that people critique the idea - not whether a change is needed.  We are very set in our ways here, and I don't think a reply of "Nah its fine." adds anything to a discussion.

War should be slow in my opinion. Sorry if you do not agree.

The current system allows players with less PK skill to still aid their faction and there are ways to speed the process up.

Your suggestion means these players become less effective, they get PKed and the battle is over. One more avenue for elitist success.

While I could be convinced of upgrading the system in some way, it will never be a way that makes it easier for people who already have an easy time.

Current warfare supports those that are good at PK because of standard retrieval/drain, and allows players who are not good at it to farm gold for "better" armies.

Not suggesting you have a bad Idea, just saying it needs some deeper consideration for players old and new who may not be at your skill level.

You can take land VERY FAST right now, especially with army outfit.

I would change the way we acquire the army outfit.

Right now you NEED a merchant, and depending on playtimes/relationships its creates quite an imbalance.

I would automate army outfitting. I would have a merchant mob that sells it. I would make it very expensive (and have proceeds kicked back and divided among all existing merchants)

I would also have a cooldown timer on it.

So now anyone can buy the outfit anytime, and whenever a Merchant logs in they will get a delivery of funds based on how much was purchased while they were away.

Players who buy the outfit would have it for 72 hours, then it could go on cooldown for another 36 hours. (numbers subject to change, just spitballing ideas)

I would make one caveat, if there are currently no Merchants in existence then the mob would close shop and not sell the buff.

I like the aspect of owning land, but I also kind of enjoyed having to physically walk them to their points rather than how they are now since it takes forever in some cases for them to get there. Fun fact: Over a year ago Nexus had Knights boarded up to their Castle. Today they've finally made enough headway to push them back either near or to their very doors depending on the time spent with them.

Armies aren't really geared towards people who suck at PK. It's more of an added element that was needed to make Cabals more entertaining rather than just a simple CTF style game. Sure you can use outfits to make it faster, but it also still takes time which literally only favors people who have a lot of time to play and not your typical player who actually has a life outside of FL.

I would agree that a MOB would be nice to have for times there isn't a Merchant online because I'd want it to also offer Merchant EQ for lowbies for a fee. Otherwise it's a pain in the ass to level up sometimes depending on the combo played unless you're lucky and end up coming upon a bunch of really nice armor that would greatly enhance your armor/hit/dam.

What we could do different is add in raids for all Cabal's as well as Armies. This would mean we'd probably have to double the amount of bastions made and able to hold up to two separate Cabals at one time. This also offers opportunity to open up more trade opportunities and alliances. As is it has become a very stale aspect to the game entirely as it hasn't really changed since it was first implemented going into 2.0.

Proposed alternate choices:

Tug-o-war:

*Essentially a mini game where it doesn't take stats into account but rather puzzles solved. This could be something as simple as implementing some form of board game like Chess, Checkers, or even Chutes and Ladders. It could also be done in a game show style with random questions based entirely on the game itself and the one with the most correct answers would gain a point going towards the total takeover. This would mean you can only gain things when other enemies are online requiring no PK opportunities, but a battle of wits. This means that it will be easy or hard based on the knowledge of the player themselves. List of questions should be no less than say 5000 questions so getting the same one twice in any bout would be really low.

Engineering:

• What this would be is similar to what we already have but also a little different. Instead of having to deal with a bunch of bastions you have to create your own beasts. There would be 5 types of which all have a perk and all have a vuln. Kind of a rock, paper, scissors of the bunch where some may have two vulns but have greater strengths against 1 specific type and so on. Each Cabal would specialize in ONE of these so as to add a little more balance to it, but they'd offer similar creatures with subtle differences so no one Cabal is the same as another. Within each Cabal they'll sell the parts needed to create each type and they would have levels themselves based on your rank and not Cabal rank. At level 50 you can create a level 10 MOB as a "General" with two additional level 5 MOBs.

• Cabals holding the area will have 5 MOBs in the area, 1 level 10, 2 level 8's, and 2 level 5's. Each level has 200HP more than the previous. Rather than training like we do with armies now, we merely upgrade so if one dies in order to replace it they'll need to go back to buy the necessary parts to create a new one to replace it. Once they're hurt, they cannot regen health so there's no worries of having to quit out and come back to them being at full HP again unless someone else killed it and the enemy eventually replaced it themselves.

• The numbers game would become null and void. Only one person in your Cabal can participate at a given time. So if you're the only one in your Cabal online you can participate with it, and you're still able to PK as well. In the event someone else logs on they can decide who uses them and the other being on the offensive. IE: Praetorian would typically PK, but Sigil would prioritize the armies at that point. This means you may be outnumbered PK wise, but you're not going to have everything taken more quickly because of their higher numbers.

• This would mean faster area take overs with similar rewards  with CPs, but would also offer the unique aspect of possibly gaining items to level your  soldiers to 12 instead of just 10 with items you can't purchase in your Cabal. This would go towards "fortifying" your main defensive MOB and when you have won the area all of these would instantly become a "bastion" but in a MOB aspect that we can't hurt without an army in use.

• You would not be able to keep sending more armies after one has fallen. Once you've lost 3 you may send only 1 to go in, but you would no longer be able to send patrols  to make the time shorter to get to that point. You're basically going to be on an even playing field as everyone else from both a Veteran and Newbie stand point outside of just having to learn how to use it. Each battle should take about half the time to defeat an area without using any Merchant EQ. If you do use it what it does is basically buffs your armies taken into battle by an additional 200 HP and the cost for a Merchant to use this would also be halved in terms of price but it would also offer a timer on when you can gain it again even if all of your armies died. The timer would be 4 IG days minimum.

• Just because you have defeated all other MOBs except the highest level one, doesn't mean you own the area. You must defeat it in order to gain the area so if you need to quit out, you can still send your armies in as usual, but they lose any benefits they had after you log out. So if you have armor from a Merchant and quit out, the bonus HP goes away as well so they wont be able to keep those perks just because you log out. As is armies I believe gain a bonus to damage without anyone being logged in, so this change would be the opposite of that. You'd also be stuck with the timer because once you log out, logging back in wont give it back. That means if there is no Merchant online you're on the same footing as anyone else but gaining it prior to quitting out means you've just wasted your gold unless the Merchant is nice enough to inform you it isn't wise to do such.

Really love this idea as it's similar to something I've wanted to see.  Though I'm not the greatest of fan of capture the flag (nor am I very good at pk in FL), I would like to see enhanced in one way or another. 

Jumping off from this idea, the flag would only be vulnerable to capture when an army is sent to siege the enemy cabal.  From there, a player would be the one who has to fight through the cabal guard to take it.  Furthermore, the sieging cabal can focus their siege against different services of the cabal; i.e. disabling specific cabal rank powers, disabling cabal vendors/services, small poison effect in the cabal, or just more focus on the gate to take it down faster.  

The attacker in this case could now risk (by spending CPs) to gain an advantage in the upcoming fight.  However, this would send a warning to the defending cabal so that they in turn can spend resources to block the tactic and/or change to being more aggressive against the enemy cabal.  

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Now instead of a chase, the flag would be taken to a warcamp, either pre-determined, randomly chosen, or picked by the initiator of the attack.  I would say this warcamp should be in a nearby zone but not too far away.  While the flag is in the warcamp, the cabal will have to send armies to the warcamp to make it vulnerable and try to wrest the flag back.  The warcamp would be like a temporary cabal base wherein limited services are there to promote some form of attrition.  If the flag is held after a set number of time, the sieging cabal would then get even greater benefit.  You could force a cooldown for the defeated cabal if you wanted to.

I think this would create a little staging area to keep the fight going between the two cabals.  The warcamp should nowhere near be as comprehensive as the cabal home.  The cabal who lost their flag will also have sieging options similar to what was mentioned before.

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I hate it, entirely.  Nexus has no lands, but do you see that stopping Skree?  It means absolutely nothing.  yes it effects some things but not to the point that it matters.

You have to remember that from the time I came back in June of 2016 until about 5 months ago (maybe a little longer than that), the Nexus had Knight all the way up to their front door almost the entire time. Even when I played in them at first I think the furthest we managed to push them back was to the Eastern Road between Ivesianna and I shortly after she was first inducted. Nexus had always had VERY strong characters in at the time in both PK and RP but they also had the numbers to push us right back within days. We even started going around the Sea Elven Cay to see if we could sneak around just in case and they caught on quick.

It didn't stop Ivesianna back then though and she has since become a powerhouse to Knight in every way without faltering. Even her RP has been consistent for over a year now, which is honestly a feat no one else has ever seemed to pull off like that while I've played at least. Skree never really seems to care about taking lands though, he appears to care more about himself than anything which is why taking lands doesn't stop him. Nexus is also severely lacking in numbers so the high numbers in Knight has finally begun to work against them. The RP path Skree has chosen also appears to go against Nexus in some ways, but that's something you can only really see IG from an IC point of view.

I think having it being left the same doesn't hurt the game really, but it has been the exact same way for over a decade which makes it very stale for most people who have played the game for more than 5 years. A new system would be great to implement. Is it needed? No, but it would be nice to see something new for them for once rather than just factions/clans and regular classes and Cabal skills.

Well yeah leaving it doesn’t hurt anything but there’s plenty that could be done to make it more effective.