Ryzom

Do you want this feature, already in development, to be implemented as described in the document below?

http://www.ryzom.com/development/in-development/spires-en/

Global Faction PvP - Claiming Territories For Your Faction

by Xavier Antoviaque — Creation Date : Monday,24 October , 2005


Three months ago, the PvP Strike Team introduced some of the early concepts of the Faction vs Faction PvP in its letter; we'll now have a more detailled look at the gameplay elements of the on-going global war, to be patched next month at the same time as the Outposts.
All over the currently known territories of Atys, towers will be erected by those who want to claim lands for their own faction. Owning or loosing a land won't be without consequences, as the towers will grant special advantages to the members of the corresponding faction...
1] PvP Flag

The first thing to keep in mind is the role of the PvP flag. You will only be affected by the rules and effects described in this document if you choose to enable it. This way, if you don't want to participate in the PvP conflict, you will be able to stay out of it – you will only be affected by the availability of respawn points and teleport tickets. However, there will be an interesting difference: there will be large battles all over the territory, which you will be able to watch safely.

2] Claiming Territories
We see on picture A that there is a base per region; their purpose is to host spires summoned by you. There is one base per region. Each base has a specific effect when activated by a faction (examples: bonus in melee damage, in Sap regeneration rate, etc.). This effect is automatically active in the whole region as soon as the spire has been taken, and will positively affect all PvP-flagged players of the faction which owns the spire, and negatively affect all PvP-flagged players of the opposing faction.

3] Summoning a Spire

During a faction war, factions can create a spire on each base. It will give the control of the region to the faction which has summoned it. Once the spire in place, the region is considered as belonging to the faction owning the spire. Active altars and TP tickets in the region are only those of the faction who took control over that region.

To summon a spire, you will have to spend faction points gained by killing enemy players during faction wars or by destroying opposing spires. Faction points are centralised on a global pool.
There are different kinds of spires with different effects (regeneration rates, characteristics, power, etc.), and unique spires (with a effect on resists, dodge/parry, etc.) available for the faction owning the most spires in all territories.

Each spire has many HP and a very high regeneration rate. There is a fixed global amount of HPs for all spires, distributed among all of them – the more spires you own, the less HP each of them has, thus making it increasingly defend to defend them.

4] Linking regions

On picture A, we can notice a red line linking the spires n° 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5: the same faction owns the five spires of five contiguous regions (Outlaw Canyon > Sawdust Mines > Savage Dunes > Scorched Corridor > Dunes of Exile).

When two spires belonging to the same faction are linked (contiguous regions), their effects are spread in all linked regions. On picture A, since the line is 1-2-3-4-5, all effects are active in the five regions of that line.

5] Spires levels

Each active spire on a base is automatically “level 1”.
As you construct more spires, their level increases (see the table below), and the effect of these spires becomes stronger. If the number of owned spires decreases, the spires' level will automatically decrease accordingly.
Level 1 - 1 spire
Level 2 - 5 spires
Level 3 - 15 spires
Level 4 - 25 spires
Level 5 - 35 spires
On picture B, the opposing faction has captured the Scorched Corridor (2), breaking the 1-2-3-4-5 line. The line becomes only 3-4-5 (losing the effects from 1 and 2), and 1 becomes isolated (losing the four extra effects).
6] Miscellaneous

a) Respawn
It is impossible to respawn in a region owned by an opposing faction. It is possible to respawn in a neutral region, a region controlled by one’s faction, or in one’s own capital.

b) Teleportation tickets
It is impossible to use TP tickets when their destination is an area owned by an opposing faction. It is possible to use TP tickets in neutral areas, areas controlled by one’s faction, or in capitals.

c) NPC guards
Next to each spire, there are 6 NPC guards, and also officers in charge of warning the faction using a dedicated channel when a spire is under attack, destroyed or spawned. The level of these NPC guards doesn’t depend on the level of the area :

• Elite Warrior, level 250 (Defense level 50)
• Warrior, level 250 (Defense level 50)
• Warrior, level 250 (Defense level 50)
• Magician, level 250 (Defense level 50)
• Magician, level 250 (Defense level 50)
• Magician, level 250 (Defense level 50)

I think the problem is as usual we don't have enough info.

Currently all we really know is that we're going to fight for what we've had for all this time... Woohoo!
It'll prolly be alright for a while... y'know... It's a new toy and all that, great! But after the noveltys worn off its just alot of trouble to do what we want and used to be able to do.

Outposts have a point to them at least... You have to put the effort in to take/keep them before you'll get the loot but with Spires we've already had the loot (ability to TP around) forever so it'd suck to suddenly have to work for it when theres plenty else more interesting to get on with.

Are we gunna get rewards for the work other than keeping what we've already got? If so maybe it'll start to apeal.

Right now for me I'm not gunna say yes or no because I believe in giving things a try, but I'm worried, I know that much.

More PvP ONLY content: *sigh*
More PvP ONLY content that boosts (winning) PvPers: *more sighs*
More PvP ONLY content that nerfs non-PvPers: *facepalm*

Voted no, shockingly. I think Spires as described will be even more of a _huge_ mistake than OPs have proved to be.

EDIT:

After reading what you said about "what would it take to make me vote yes instead" I have a list of suggestions:

Make it not affect _anyone_ unless they are tagged.

The Boosts from being in a region with Spires belonging to your faction _only_ work for PvP. (Ditto the debuffs from enemy spires).

Let neutrals attack and build Spires of their own that dont block access, just grant buffs etc for neutrals and stop the fanatics building one on that spot. (this would require a neutral PvP tag and neutral faction points. So yeah, I'm greedy, and?)

Voted No. With the community being small, an idea like spires will fail miserably. Plus limiting players from parts of the map is a bad idea. If it was adjusted so that say if you went into an area where your faction didn't own the spire you got a debuff of sorts... like lose 25-33% HP/sap... that'd make digging and hunting possible there, but its more risky. Or just have the boost go the controlling faction, but not limit TPs, etc.

I think the idea of spires would have worked had we had a larger community. One where people were more PvP oriented and the spires would be contested daily... (GoC would sway throughout the day being kami/kara controlled for example). But we don't have the pvp community, nor the people in general for them to work. As jayce said, it'll go from "ooh.. new shiny!" to the stale state that OPs are in.

From my reading of the Planned spires it will only effect PvP tagged players. So cater to them only ?.
My concern would be any possible future plans to link the spires to Factions of players.
The PvP concerns I have are also related to the 'quality' of interaction in a PvP orientated game. I have seen SWG cater to PvP and degenerate into 'JEDI WARS'..with the majority greeting new folk with 'duel me noob'..I have wandered into town (In a RP server) in WOW and been surrounded by DUEL FLAGS ????..
So you see that PvP is NOT optional, it is intrusive, and when ignored/declined often leads to abusive /tells 'U NOOB' or 'I CAN PAWN UZ' etc.....
To PvP well you must have high stats and skills.....this can only come from 'grinding' levels..so I expect to see more people chasing levels than appreciating the intricate aspects of Ryzom.
I guess the more I think about it, the more I am concerned...and voted NO.

Voted NO simply cause a game is supposed to be fun, if you arent into PVP why should you be subjected to it, why should non-pvpers be limited to where they can go and have their own type of fun in peace, it seems that for well over a year now, nothin much new added to the game has been about anything but adding new pvp content. Its about time the Non-pvpers got something new.

901941 wrote:One of the best activities now is trekking and Spires will make this impossible.

Well, the unavailability of TP's would mean trekking becomes even more important to daily life, really.



Not that I think spires will be great. I'm withholding judgement. I guess tehnically I don't like the way spires are outlined in the given description, but like everything else, they will be changed by the time they hit game. Could be for the better, could be for the worse.... we'll see.

Anything thats makes the choice of faction more meaningful and relevant, and carries across the pretty fundamental story line of the kara/kami conflict is very welcome by me.

The problem is, as with the factionalisation of teleports, that things are being taken away - not added.

People do not like that.

What would have made more sense, and would make more sense with this, would be to add additional TPs as a reward for choosing a faction, or in this case for owning a spire in that territory.

The other problem is, yes, it is still unclear who is going to be affected, and how. We've been told a couple of times in different ways that neutrals won't be affected. This has its own problem, if a kami aligned person can't teleport to a kami TP, why would neutrals still be able to?

I just can't see this working, at all, I'm afraid. I think there's potential better ways to bring the faction war more relevence.

I'd devote the time and energy, instead, to one of the following...

1. RP props.[1]
2. Adding the third dimension (jumping, diving, falling and going splat).
3. More clothing/armour/weapon patterns.[2]
4. More encyclopaedia missions.
5. Player housing [3]
6. Expanding the ring.

*1 - Food and drink, ornamentation, musical instruments (that don't play yet) for the food and drink reuse code from the easter eggs and flowers to give them some low level use but the main point would be visual, handheld items, maybe even faction 'banners' similar but different to the GM sticks.

*2 - Again, allow faction some relevence by making some patterns only available by faction and maybe with expensive materials bought from kami/karavan suppliers. Mainly - again - just for the look of the thing, outfits like the kami/kara skirts from the temple war but more complete and something for Neutrals too.

*3 - This would now be a 'relative' piece of piss to do. The Ring already allows for intuitively put together personal spaces, stored player side and with invite only availability to other players. You scrap the current guildhall/apartment instances and replace them with apartments designed, effectively, through the ring.

Instead of a map you select a layout from an available series and then populate it with house items/wallhangings etc from a list as per the ring. Since you only need your apartment while online it can be stored locally and access to certain apartment content can be activated in a similar way to ring point, by buying access or - for animal heads to stuff and mount - by killing bosses etc.

The framework is already there once Ring is up and working smoothly.

As to what would make me change my vote to yes...
As I said above, make them linked to NEW teleporters within the spire's area of control and otherwise give them no effect whatsoever outside of PvP. I even don't mind if neutrals are blocked from buying this new teleports (Just give us our old ones back, or at least the towns).