We have yet to hear AGS’s opinion on the state of territory control, even though there are countless threads here and on Reddit about the same issue we are all seeing. The game is on its final legs, and the remaining loyal base is getting pushed out on every server by a select few players/companies.
As we all know, there are few servers left and what remains is seeing the same issue we all saw at launch. Mega companies / “elite” armies with mercs (the same mercs), dominating the map and circumventing the siege timer with shell companies. Servers are being ravaged by these players who soak up the servers wealth. These companies/players are now bored with their same competition and have alts on other servers and are wreaking havoc everywhere. These players don’t care about the state of the game. I’ve had countless conversations with them on this forum, on reddit, on discord and in global. They refuse to change their playstyle to maintain the games health and will use every tactic to showcase their “superiority”. Sadly, they will have no one to showcase their “eliteness” to as the remaining loyal base has had enough.
AGS - what is your stance on territory control? There is no running away from this issue anymore. Every server is now plagued with this. Server xfers only made it worse. Once companies get bored, they move to another server, make it a mega server, destroy it, rinse and repeat. This issue alone has been talked about since OCTOBER. It pushes people out of the game as it is the only company community content (chest runs don’t count) in the game (since there is no raid content).
I would love to hear it. I don’t think they want to talk about it, but I’d love to hear it.
The core design of the game, that brought most of us in, has failed. I don’t think they even care to fix it given what they’ve chosen to focus on this year so far. Arenas, seasonal events and mutators are just fluff content, distractions. Meanwhile they still haven’t even addressed the absurdity of tax revenue that enables and motivates the bad actors in the first place. Its very disappointing, to say the least.
Honest question for most hardcore players here, what do you think should be done to fix these issues? Ive played since alpha and like most that did love the idea of territory control, pvp, and a more hardcore experience but i can also appreciate a more laid back game. Do we think the territory system is a system left in place from the old days and should be removed in favor of something else? I think they need to honestly scrap it and add in a massive new zone dedicated to pvp, guilds, and factions. The idea of settling a new frontier is still optional but the core idea should be shifted a bit. Obviously this may upset some guilds that own the land but give these guilds something else to fight for and make their mark on the world. Besides owning a city honestly feels pretty bad after owning Monarchs for about a month. My guild fought tooth and nail the Entire time and we decided it just straight wasnt worth the 24/7 try harding to hold it. But what do you lot think?
Change tax revenue: normalize the income across settlements and make it ONLY available for town and fort upgrades. Make owning towns more about pride and passive benefits than massive tax windfalls and it should tamp down a lot of the stuff pushing people out right now.
Change wars: put the focus on siege warfare and not point capture. The only point should be the one inside the walls. Think keep battles in ESO’s Cyrodiil. The wars are way too boring and encourage strategies that induce lag. Removing the points and allowing players to attack any of four entrances right out of the gate should make the battles much more interesting and dynamic. Balance changes to the keep walls, overall fort design and siege engines would need to take place for this to work well.
Change war rosters: A lot of reason certain groups can take over the way they do is because they exercise too much control over the war rosters and isolate everyone else from the experience. Loosening the grip on the roster will make the game more chaotic but also more equitable at the same time.
territory owning company can only place 5/10 squads
attacking company can only place 5/10 squads
5 squads on each side are auto-filled from the list of recruits
you can only sign up to attack or defend for your own faction
Change influence: Throw out the missions. Controlling key points in a territory is how you gain influence to start a war. Forts, farms, mines and other resources POIs have capture points that when held tick up your influence and provide resources, like the carts in town. The more POIs captured the more influence gain.