> [Aurora Project] What New World could become <
Greetings to all.
The so-called “Aurora Project” is a set of ideas divided into several Post, where they will be treated individually and precisely. It is very important to understand that these suggestions are my way of understanding and improving New World, and that of course any other opinion is totally valid as well. I ask for the maximum possible respect in these Posts that I am going to discuss, and if anyone wants to comment, I would ask you, please, that they read the entire Project, all Post with the Tag “[Aurora Project]” and written by me: “Lobo_Necrodes”, to understand its objective.
More Posts will be added over time and with new ideas. I accept contributions from other users who send them to me by Private Message to continue creating a “New World”.
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This is a post that I have wanted to do for a long time, so it may be longer than usual, although they are already long; sorry for the encyclopedias that I make you read sometimes …
I hope they understand my point of view and respect it, as well as I try to understand all their points of view and respect them as well. This is not a Post for everyone, but I think that if it is really important for you, who are reading this, it is really important to have fun and quality PvP, you should read the entire post and then reflect on the topics that are going to be here. treat.
This is a matter that I have already discussed many times with friends with whom I have been playing MMORPGs for 20+ years. It is something that we already talked about before the first Betas of New World, because there are many years of experience already and by watching the promotional videos, we already knew what we were going to find with this game. It is something that we discussed again during the Betas, on several occasions. And it is something that, just tonight I have been talking with a friend for hours… (Right now it is 5:14AM early morning in Spain, where I live, and when I hit the button to post, it will be even later).
For months I have been collecting this information, taking notes and all that to one day make this Post. They already realized that my Posts are not very elaborate, I usually treat the subject above and a little more, but I do not go into too much detail. This is because for many years I have given my feedback to many games, especially MMORPGs, and I have invested a lot of time, passion and dedication to what I do, but rarely has a development team contacted me, told me about my project or my ideas for his games, and he has asked my permission to take my ideas, modify them if necessary to better fit his vision, and finally publish them. In most cases they simply add them with many changes, so many changes that the original idea is hardly recognized… and not only that, but also the remedy ended up being worse than the disease.
For this reason, I prefer to speak only above, without too much detail, leave the concept of my ideas, and if at some point a development team contacts me, then I elaborate the idea in a detailed way with them.
I say this, because when writing this Post there is a job behind it, a job of gathering information, of combining mechanics of many other games, of talking about the subject with many people asking for their opinion of the mechanics that the game currently has, tell them my ideas, and ask her how she would like these changes. Update my ideas based on your answers, etc. However, you will not see all those details and nuances here because they would be investing too much time and effort in something that never happens, and that idea can be used in another project then; thus improving the [Aurora Project] more and more.
I hope you understand my point of view and respect it, as well as I try to understand all their points of view and respect them as well. This is not a Post for everyone, but I think that if it is really important for you, who are reading this, it is really important to have fun and quality PvP, you should read the entire post and then reflect on the topics that are going to be treat here.
This post, along with: [Aurora Project] Changes in “Castle Siege” : Tools to manage groups
They are the result of many hours, days, weeks and even months, of conversations with dozens and dozens of players who are also looking for changes in Node Wars / Castle Siege, so I really hope you enjoy doing it as much as I do.
I do not roll more and we go to the main topic: Updating mechanics of the Castle Sieges.
The points that I am going to deal with are:
- How would “Friendly Fire” affect New World PvP?
- Should a player killed in a Castle Siege die permanently like in a Battle Royale?
- Should a Castle Siege be won by stopwatch or by the death of an entire team?
- Being able to choose Defenses and Attack Tools before a War?
- How should the Castle “Gates” work in the middle of a War?
- How should the Castle “Store” work in the middle of a War?
- How often should a Castle be attacked?
- Who should be affected by the taxes of a conquered territory?
- How should Skills and Equipment work in PvP?
- Visual over-information in Node Wars?
As you can see, there are not a few topics that I want to deal with, and it is most likely that they will be updated in the future with more things. So let’s get started!
1. How would “Friendly Fire” affect New World PvP?
One of the main problems that I see in New World PvP, is that it seems that the game tries to have a “realistic” tone, but it does not finish achieving it due to certain elements such as the “Damage per fall” that we already discussed in the post:
[Aurora Project] Brainstorm: List of minor changes
And another one of those things why he doesn’t get it, is because PvP becomes… quite comical and ridiculous, excuse me for the expression, but that’s how I see it and I’m really sorry.
It does not happen as much in Open World PvP because not enough players gather, but in Castle Siege PvP the most common is to see how 4 or 5 players attack a solitary player with a skill spam. Or how 10 players fight with 10 other players in a narrow corridor where nothing is seen, there are only 20 people spamming buttons like crazy, while another 10 Supports are throwing all their healing areas inside that corridor … although they neither they know very well what is happening, they only see blue and red bars going up and down …
New World has a more or less “tactical” combat system, with few skills that you must use when they are really necessary. With a slow and more or less realistic combat rhythm, which tries to encourage the player to act like in real life, and it is a real shame to see these absurd fights of 20 monkeys in a corridor where they only push buttons like crazy.
If you put any video on YouTube, you can see that this is something that happens constantly, in fact always, and you can also see that being “tactical” is not the best option to win a battle. I still haven’t seen a single video where the attacking Clan breaks into small groups to cause skirmishes, forcing the defending Clan to defend one area, thus forcing them in turn to unprotect another. Nor have I seen a group of Archers with a specific function being formed, such as killing the players leaning out of the walls. Or entire groups of shield troopers leading their team down the corridor forcing the defending Clan back. I have not seen anything, nothing really, about undertaking a Castle Siege in a “tactical”, “logical”, “reasonable” and “intelligent” way, as one would try to do in real life in order not to die (The theme of “Death” we will deal with in point 2).
I think that the “Friendly Fire” would be something positive that would help all the players to face a Castle Siege in a more realistic way, being more careful not to crowd so as not to harm their allies, forcing the players to form small groups, to give a specific function to each of these groups. To use certain groups to attack and others to wait to take action at the necessary moment, and not just throw 50 soldiers headfirst in the middle of a senseless war …
With “Friendly Fire”, Archers, Mages and ranged attackers in general, would be forced to use their attacks intelligently, possibly doing what I mentioned before, attacking players that melee cannot reach, how for example, players of the enemy Clan who are leaning out of the walls, or simply trying to kill the furthest players, leaving the melee to fight each other.
I know it seems crazy, and that many players will already be with their hands on their heads, but I think that we constantly demand a lot from companies, because we constantly ask them for better and better games, but we never demand from ourselves, and I think that The “comfort” I have made many games today much worse than they could have been, because companies often make mechanics so that the game has everything “easier”, and thanks to that we lose a lot of quality …
Thanks to things like the “MiniMap” the “exploration in games” has been lost.
Thanks to things like the “Track” of missions where he marks you with an arrow all the time where to go or what to kill, nobody reads anything anymore, nobody enjoys the history of games, or the magic of discovering things that others don’t have discovered thanks to reading.
Thanks to tools such as that there is never “Friendly Fire”, or that “Dying” has no weight because we revive at 30 seconds just 50 meters, it makes no player take their decisions seriously when facing a fight.
Please … understand that if we want better quality in video games, we must realize and accept that there are many “comforts” that we should give up, because they make games lose quality and fun. I ask you to reflect on what I am telling you, because it will not be the only controversial topic that I will touch on in this post; and I think we all need to do an awareness raising exercise on these issues.
2. Should a player killed in a Castle Siege die permanently like in a Battle Royale?
As I have already mentioned in point 1, knowing that when you die you will revive in just a few seconds and at a short distance, makes you make less transcendent decisions, less tactical, less intelligent, and that you play more crazy and carefree; and I think there must be a PvP to play like that, more relaxed, but that Castle Siege is not that … I think that Castle Siege is a very important mechanic of New World, perhaps its most important mechanic of all as I have already said in some occasion, and I think you have to play it with the seriousness it deserves.
In a Battle Royale, X number of players, let’s say 100, are deployed on a large map, and must survive the confrontation with each other. Only one player, or a team of players, can be the winner, and if you die once, you are dead forever in that game. That is why the Battle Royale genre hit so hard in the video game market, because for many years no other game offered us the adrenaline of knowing that we could not make any mistakes, because that could lead to our death and we would have lost the game for full. All our programming, everything we had achieved up to that point, we would lose EVERYTHING, and we would be forced to start everything from scratch.
This also made us all play with our hearts in our hands, always looking everywhere, looking around every corner, spending long minutes completely alone and lying on the ground watching as a whole group of players passed a few meters from us, aiming at their heads slowly so as not to attract attention, and repeating in our heads over and over again: “If they see me, I’m dead.”
That feeling of knowing that our life is IMPORTANT, is something that no other game was giving us for almost 2 decades, and that is why the Battle Royale became a phenomenon.
All players here who are 25+ years old will know what I’m talking about. We have played many times ancient arcade games like Pang, Megaman 3, The Revenge of Shinobi … we know that when we have 3 or 4 lives played much more carefree than when we only have one life left, and that if we die we will have to start all the game from the start. Having the last life and knowing that makes us play more focused, more tactical, in a more intelligent way; and in the vast majority of cases, that is precisely what makes us win the game and overcome it.
Dark Souls is another of these examples, where you know that if you die, you will return to the stake again and you will have to kill, AGAIN, all the enemies one by one until you return to the point where you were, and if you also die before reaching the collect your souls, you will have lost them all and you will have to start over from scratch … This mechanic is the one that also made the Soulslike famous; a video game genre that is actually much older than Dark Souls, but that would be another topic.
The point is, having a single life makes you appreciate your life. If we all knew that when we died in the real world, we would come out right next to us in 5 seconds like our whole new body, we would not mind if we were hit by a car or falling off a balcony … the World would be in chaos.
I think that having a single life in the Castle Siege of New World would be key for it to become a much more tactical, realistic and competitive game mode. Conquering a territory would really be something important, something that Clans would really give their 100% for.
- Here I would like to talk about an important topic, “Reanimate a fellow injured but not dead”, but it is something that I will talk about in
[Aurora Project] Brainstorm: List of minor changes
This point links directly to point 3.
3. Should a Castle Siege be won by stopwatch or by the death of an entire team?
Currently a castle Siege is won when the timer reaches zero, there it is decided which team won the territory. If the attacking team did not conquer the Castle before the timer reaches zero, then the Castle will remain the defending team’s. On the contrary, if the defending team had a gap in their defenses before the timer reached zero, and the attacking team conquered the central area of the Castle, the attacking team will have conquered that territory.
For the rest, while the timer is counting, everything has the same mechanics as a Deathmatch with 4 conquest points: 3 exteriors and the central area of the Castle.
If you ask me, I think this is all nonsense …
A war is won when one of the two sides fights, or one of the two sides loses all its soldiers and cannot continue the offense or defense; and I think, that is how the Castle Siege of New World should be.
If you remember point 2, assuming that now the deaths are permanent, each team has 50 soldiers, and each one of those soldiers is of vital importance, since each soldier killed will be one less asset in the War since that soldier will not return to the game until the war is over.
At this point, there isn’t much more to say: The team that runs out of soldiers or uses “Surrender” will be the losing team, and the other team will take command of that territory.
Easy, realistic, and the way I see it, much fairer than a stopwatch.
I have commented on other occasions that I play Dota 2 a lot, and I have played it at a competitive level. Dota 2 is a MOBA game with RTS touches, it has a very large learning curve, a tremendous level of depth, and is incredibly tactical; and there are games that are won in 10-15 minutes, and others that are won in +60 minutes. Sometimes defending and buying time brings you closer to victory than attacking and pressing. There are many strategies to consider in a war and I think the timer destroys some of them.
4. Being able to choose Defenses and Attack Tools before a War??
Today, if you are the Governor of a territory, you can upgrade your Castle, among other things, but … you cannot “choose” how to defend your castle. That is, you may or may not have an “Oil Trap” in your castle, but you cannot choose between several options.
I think that the defense of the castle is one of the most important things when it comes to defending it; at least it sounds pretty logical that “Defenses” are important to “Defend”. And I think there should be more “options” to defend your castle.
Some examples:
- Towers that spit fire.
- Cannons that fire a salvo of arrows in an area.
- Being able to place barricades with spikes outside the Castle.
This way, when War is announced in your territory, you could choose different defenses for your castle.
Similarly, Attack Tools are important to players coming to conquer.
Some examples:
- Rams. A multiplayer tool for breaking Gates faster.
- Small caliber mobile cannons, designed to be used by 2 players.
- Fire grenades that can be used against the Gates.
I think that all this should be a topic treated in greater depth, looking for more options so that the players can decide more precisely, what tactics they are going to use, either to defend or to attack a Castle.
5. How should the Castle “Gates” work in the middle of a War?
Moving on to point 5, let’s talk about the Castle Gates in question and how they work.
How is it possible for the defending players to enter and leave the Castle at will, keeping the Gates closed? What’s the point of this?
A Castle can have its Gates open or closed, but they are not magic portals… please, we are talking about a game from 2021, not one from year 2000 that must resort to these mechanics.
In addition, choosing whether a door is open or closed is also part of the defending team’s strategy. So they can opt for a strategy where they keep half of their melee soldiers outside the Castle while the other waits inside, and the ranged soldiers defend the Castle from the balconies. Or keep all the melee inside the Castle while you defend yourself with only weaponry and ranged soldiers, to open the doors at the last moment and take all your melee soldiers into battle, when the enemy team is already weakened. That if a defending soldier opens a door, the enemy team can sneak in.
Are a lot of things; using the castle gates as if they were portals, takes away a tactical part from the war.
And please, an animation for the doors when they are destroyed.
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Modifications may come to this Post in the future, and will be added as an answer and / or edit.
Remember once again, that these suggestions are my way of understanding and improving New World, and that of course any other opinion is totally valid as well. I ask for the maximum possible respect in these Posts that I am going to discuss, and if anyone wants to comment, I would ask you, please, that they read the entire Project, all Post with the Tag “[Aurora Project]” and written by me: “Lobo_Necrodes”, to understand its objective.
Thanks for your time and attention, and until next time. Greetings.