The influence and territory system is awful and here is why

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To start this off, I think everyone should be able to enjoy the benefits of your faction controlling a zone. We already get reduced fast travel costs, tax incentives, etc. However, unless your company actually controls that zone, you miss out on the entirety of the real cake, the gold.

Influence System: Let me tell you the story of my companies, and many others, plight with this system. We run the largest company(ies) as Marauders on our server. We run or largely participate in every war, we organize most of the PvP influence pushes and generally have the majority. Every single time for the last week (except for once) we push a territory into conflict only to lose the bid to a 10 man company and the three people within who decided to help. Each time they ask our company to run or largely help with the war. I understand AGS wants an even playing field, but it is ridiculous in my opinion that our 50 man group should lose a bid to 3 people who weren’t even running with us.

Honestly, there should be a minimum amount of people from a company along with the 10% influence to be able to declare war and put a bid in. What is even more annoying is what follows.

Territory System: The only two territories in the game as of this moment that are actually worth owning are Everfall and Windsward. Plain and simple. It has been like that since Alpha testing and I am willing to bet that is the case on 99% of the servers out there. They are central territories that make the most sense to buy a house in and use as a hub, which is why they rake in hundred of thousands of gold a week if not more.

Owning any of the other territories causes more issues and harm than good. The upkeep is very costly and no one, especially at this point of the game where people are level 60 actually use those towns for anything but a fast travel point. They literally cost more gold to upkeep than they generate.

Looping in the influence system, let’s say that small company manages to win the war with other companies’ help. What do those other companies get? A few hundred gold and azoth, faction rep and tokens, and a gear cache that often has poor loot in it. That company now has Everfall or Windsward for example and will rake in all the gold for the effort of other companies. Sure, another faction will likely throw it into conflict again soon. But defense in a war is literally a faceroll. It is too easy.

If a company owns a settlement, there needs to be incentives for the other companies within that faction to keep control of it. I understand and know of the minor incentives like azoth and taxes, but in the end, those are so minuscule it doesn’t really matter. It is a common discussion within every company whether to help defend a territory or not so that they can possibly have the chance to take it for themselves if the governing company loses. That isn’t playing as a faction and it is what the current system encourages.

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Agreed.

There should be some transparency in how bidding is calculated, how influence works in relation to winning bid chance, and any other hidden calculations should come to light. We need to know how it works because, its not working and we would love to provide helpful feedback so that everyone can enjoy the game.

It’s also been discussed that there is a possibility of a company monopoly running each server. I’m sure many of you players out there have experience with this happening. For the big company in charge, and the smaller companies helping out, I think there should be a tax transfer system that allows the governor to set a % of the taxes from a town they own to go into another company’s coffers. That way smaller companies that don’t have the player base to put an area into conflict, attack a territory, or defend a territory can be compensated for their time. It would also foster faction relationships and keep the whole player base more engaged.

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100% to your idea. The owning company should still get a large part of the cake, but the others should get a slice as well. In my mind saving a small amount of azoth I can easily get back is a small incentive to defend a territory I do not get much back from.

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Is it though? If that little 3 person company contributed 10%+ of the influence flip why shouldn’t they get a shot at the War leadership, unless what you mean by this…

…is really “to hell with those small companies, they don’t deserve a shot at war leadership at all”. What’s too small? Is it 3, 5, 10, smaller than yours?

This is demonstrably untrue. On both servers I have characters on several other territories have T4 tables of one variety or another (or more) and are relatively busy. I did Alpha too, your statement that only WW and EF mattered in Alpha is simply not the case…or does the “We’re downgrading EF to funnel some of you to Monarchs where we’ve spent money on substantial upgrades” thing by a company to remain nameless not ring a bell?

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If you were in the alphas, then you know it was mainly EF where everything was traded and owned.

I agree, the smaller companies should be able to roll for a chance based on their participation. The thing that gets larger companies is that it seems like if we do 95% of the work, and organized the event and are trying to win the rolls, we have won about 15% of the rolls when we are contributing 90-99% of the work to get it done each time. The smaller companies are almost always winning the rolls. There is some part of the calculation that we don’t know about. I’d be willing to bet that the system is simple like

Did you have players participating in doing pvp quests? Yes/No
Then you can bid, and each bid gets an equal percentage even though one company had 80 people participating for 2 hours, and one company had two very low players that were helping a tiny bit, and one level 60 for 15 minutes, then they won the bid. Not only has this happened in actuality, its been happening consistently.

I completely understand @Sommelier 's frustration, and I agree with @Hiply that everyone should get a chance. Everyone is playing to have fun, and EVERYONE should have the opportunity to enjoy their experience. Robbing the organized and hardworking for the small casual player is not the solution, and granting the large companies a monopoly on all the towns is not the solution.

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It is less about the war leadership and more about a small company essentially taking the ownership of a territory via the labors and efforts of larger companies that actually organized the push and wars.

I know the situation during alpha you are talking about and that simply isn’t the case on every or most servers. Most companies would rather hold all the highest tier tables and maintain the income.

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That doesn’t mean those small companies should be locked out of their shot at the brass ring. The second that happens you can kiss any support smaller companies lend large ones for anything googdbye, and it’s not right. The game’s threshold is 10% of the flip qualifies companies that achieve it to join the Wardec lottery. Changing that to "10% and your company must have 50 (30, 40, whatever) members to participate just sends the signal that small companies should just disband and join companies of people they have no desire to play with just so they - maybe - can get to part of the wars. That’s wrong.

That’s not only wrong…

wrong on levels
wrong on levels500×535 84.8 KB

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