So, currently we see a few issues on a lot of servers popping up that are very real, very possible, and extremely detrimental. I’ve thought a lot about these things and how they will drive away players, and, seeing as I enjoy this game, I don’t want to see it die because of these issues. This will be a little long winded, so be prepared.
One color maps, lack of pvp incentives and rewards for various things, monopolized markets due to hiked up tax rates, and no hype outside of potential DLC/expansions that may come out in the future. Without some form of defense against these issues, I could see this game not lasting very long. Here are my thoughts:
So, I’m thinking about ideas on how to maintain longevity, pvp population, and to prevent single color takeover of maps (considering a lot of servers currently are experiencing this, causing companies to leave, and the cascading effect downwards from there this causes)…
I think the idea of a seasonal reset, similar to poe but for the map control, would be a good addition. 3 month seasons, at the end of the 3rd month territories become neutral and people/guilds/factions would get rewarded in their seasonal achievements. Make those achievements require involvement in PvP, wars and invasions and you may get more PvP engagement as well.
This gives incentive and hype for newer seasons for the current playerbase, doesn’t give new players the idea that if they didn’t join at start that they’re immediately screwed if they don’t join the dominant faction, and prevents monopolizing the market by hiking up taxes.
I think that Invasions should play a part in balancing the one color map thing out. The stronger a Company’s territory becomes and the longer they hold it for, the more difficult, challenging, and costly it becomes to deal with Invasions… so if a faction/company just holds territory forever and they aren’t able to keep up with the invasions difficulty, it can be reclaimed by another Faction/company that can, since players are basically chosen by the company in charge. This would reset the territory to neutral after a failed invasion defense, and that would trigger a race to see who could gain influence faster and pay the fee to take it over if that were the case afterwards.