Compiled some suggested changes to AGS based on my experience with the update this past weekend to help guide the developer’s decision on what to do moving forward. I feel that I spent most of my time mindlessly running missions and already feel burnt out and wanting to quit until the next big update (or Brimstone). Again that is just over player’s experience but hopefully helps AGS see how this was received. Feel free to add your thoughts, agree, and most importantly disagree with these suggestions. So we can better improve them.
Tldr: Let’s increase xp of underutilized PVP activities and instead of nerfing PVP missions let’s just create a system to give more variety and force players into other territories instead of doing 200 hours of PVP missions in Great Cleave.
OPR:
Increase to +4k xp for win and +2k xp for a loss.Current rewards 2500 for win max? 500 min for loss? Performance dictates how much xp you get. Would say it should be a little higher still. I think 4k for a top performing win would be reasonable. Rewards should be based on match duration and performance score. The above amounts would be ranges that would be increased or decreased based on these metrics. If you are a top performer in a longer match maybe 5k xp while 500xp for a near AFK performer on the losing side of a 10min game. @cattboy credit for additional details.
Arenas:
Remove Cap. 1000xp for a 3-0 win, otherwise 750xp for a win and 250xp for a loss.
Currently 250, 350, 500, 750 with upcoming update.
Likely needs to be increased to 250, 500, 750, 1000 and I feel that’s at a nice sweet spot. Still don’t think there should be a cap but it’s much more generous now at least. Also know that there is a concern for bots taking over as well or people just AFK’ing for rewards.
Point Captures:
1000xp per capture, limit 3/fort/day. Fort capture xp doubled to 2k per capture if hotspot territory, see below.
Now capped at 10/day then reduced to 250. Seems reasonable. Still would like to integrate hotspot territory below, doubling the xp gained if it’s in a hotspot territory.
Open World:
Keep current xp/kill based on time since last death. Can factor in other things such as player’s recent PVP kills. Make it feel more consistent and less random. No xp if you consistently trade with same player over and over. 1.5x if kill is inside hotspot territory (see below, last time I promise lol).
PVP missions:
XP is reduced to 100/mission at baseline but kept at 500/mission when that territory is designated as hotspot.
Hotspot Territory:
One territory is chosen at random to be the Hotspot territory. Hotspot territory rotates every 2? 3? hours. It is announced in global “Ebonscale, etc is currently under attack by x and y factions!” and the territory on the map is shown with a glowing/slow flickering visual to depict this. The hotspot territory mechanic can then be applied to numerous other future content as well! You can see how it impacts different things in this post already. Why not have it so future world bosses spawn in the current hotspot territory? If my “random” node idea is implemented than you could increase the quality of randomized spawns in this territory as well. Additionally as the world grows in size, this lets you condense the 2000 players into single territories for PVP content instead of further diluting them over time.
Side comment:
Don’t make it rotate and be predictable because that’s boring, just make it a weighed random system where the weight increases over time the longer a territory goes unselected.
Bans:
Actions against players. Ban players that have been abusing system before and after change, including trading kills or swapping forts. No need to reset everyone’s track. If you temp ban them then reset those player’s PVP tracks to zero individually.
Rationale:
Reason for above changes is to provide incentive to actually PVP while increasing your PVP track level, instead of open world missions being the most efficient means of increasing your rank, often devoid of PVP interaction (although not always). Additionally this is to provide diversity in terms of what activities are efficient. By adding caps on some activities and not rewarding losses for OPR, AGS inadvertantly shifted player behavior away from PVP activities and towards only running missions. This of course gets repetitive and for all of the people coming back, just results in player churn. People come back then leave again. One thing that went really well was that this instantly revitalized Open World PVP. On larger servers Great Cleave instantly become a war zone of open world PVP, with PVP zergs colliding around the map. The disadvantage is that this is that only Great Cleave/WW are being run (most efficient runs) and eventually this will become stale. Why not spread it out a bit? To remedy this you need a hotspot mechanism to force players into other regions. Nerfs are feel bads, so let’s not nerf open world but instead fix the mistakes made in terms of OPR/Arenas and buff them. Then instead of nerfing Open World mission xp, just make it so it rotates. Now people are experiencing different open world areas instead of just the same snowy Great Cleave area over and over again until it becomes stale.
