Relic System Changes - Phoenix Freeshard

Relics always lead to very heated discussions. On the one hand many see it as the ultimate end game rvr. On the other hand having one realm own all of them not only makes that realm stronger due to the bonuses but also leads to a snowball effect because more players joining the relic owning realm and thereby weakening the other realms and making the dominating realm even stronger. Our first change to lessen exactly this snow ball effect was to make the relics charge (read this for more infos --> https://forum.playphoenix.online/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=2707). To ensure that holding enemy relics for an extended period of time is really difficult while making the retaking of your own relics easier we will make the following changes to the relic system:

Only the "home-relics" will be stored in the relic keeps. Any relic that your realm captures from an enemy realm has to be put down in a regular keep in your realm which your realm ownes. The keep doesnt need to be claimed, but we strongly advice you to do so.

You can not put the relic in one of the following keeps: Dun Crimthain, Nottmoor Faste and Caer Erasleigh. It is only possible to put down one relic per keep. If one realm has all six relics, then you need 4 regular keeps to store the 4 enemy relics. As soon as a relic has been put down in a keep, you will see this when using /relic.

Keeps storing a relic inside will NOT have any special guards. They will have the regular guard spawn, the level of the guards depending on the level of the keep. Also keep in mind, that it is possible to downgrade a keep when killing caravans. If enemies attack the keep, there will be a realmwide message that it is under siege. The relic needs to be put down next to the keeplord and it can only be taken, if your realm ownes the keep aka you have to kill the lord, before you can pick it up.

Tue 11 Dec 2018 9:18 PM by florin

Wow - i like it. Bold move

Tue 11 Dec 2018 9:18 PM by Ownnyn

If your gonna hold relics in keeps, make the bonuses instant please. Its virtually impossible to defend a keep long term, much less multiple keeps

Tue 11 Dec 2018 9:21 PM by Ownnyn

Also, you will need realm wide notification when a keep holding a relic is under seige

Tue 11 Dec 2018 9:21 PM by Ownnyn

Otherwise relics will just be grabbed back the moment no guild members are on

Tue 11 Dec 2018 9:28 PM by Ceen

I dont like it.

Tue 11 Dec 2018 9:30 PM by Ownnyn

Will there be a working warmap before launch?

Tue 11 Dec 2018 9:31 PM by kmark101

I don't like this one either. Why would anyone go after relics if they can't keep them after the minute they go to sleep.

Tue 11 Dec 2018 9:42 PM by romulus

It's a little early to cast judgment, but I'm worried that with only 10 days left in beta that this feature won't have enough time to be fully tested.
While I like the idea that guilds will now be entrusted to hold relics, I'm worried that withering directed against relic stewards will not be noticed in time. Will the custodial guild receive any bonuses or advantages for holding a relic? Will there be any way to find out if a relic keep is being subjected to withering? Will the message when a keep level changes be modified to indicate whether the level is increasing or decreasing?

See related:
https://forum.playphoenix.online/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2795

Tue 11 Dec 2018 10:05 PM by defiasbandit

Make it so enemy relics must be held in either Dun Crauchon, Caer Benowyc, or Bledmeer Faste. Make those 3 keeps relic keeps now.

Tue 11 Dec 2018 10:05 PM by Ardri

Nerfed relics into the ground lol. I guess that's one way to balance them.

The scaling system still doesn't stop everyone from swapping realms on day 10. In my opinion an account bound scaling system over say 30 days would be better. Reward the PLAYER who is loyal to a realm the longer they stay on it, not the realm they're going to as a whole. Only your account/realm loyalty should matter.

And then enemy relics can only be kept at regular keeps with regular guards? Ha, good luck holding that down. Enemy relics will just hop until they find their way back to the home relic keep. And then everyone will ignore taking them because it's not worth the hassle when you will easily lose it. A scaling 5% over 10 days, that doesn't affect dmg cap, in a keep that can be easily raided? Lol okay.

Tue 11 Dec 2018 10:13 PM by romulus

Can we at least get persistent keep levels before this goes live? It can take 12 hours or more for a keep to fully upgrade to level 10! I don't want to see a bunch of relic raids being launched immediately after a server restart against level 1 and 2 keeps!

Tue 11 Dec 2018 10:29 PM by

Uthred

Keep calm guys, the worlds not going to end because of this.

@Ownnyn Read the text. "If enemies attack the keep, there will be a realmwide message that it is under siege. "

@Defias No.

@Ardri We may put in a realmpride bonus. Mentioned that several times before. We will decide that after monitoring the live population for some time.

@Romulus When we go live, Keeps will not start at Keeplevel 1 when being higher before a reboot. That is only while we are in Beta. Will probably change when this new relic system is live.

Tue 11 Dec 2018 10:43 PM by defiasbandit

Make it so enemy relics must be held in either Dun Crauchon, Caer Benowyc, or Bledmeer Faste. Turn them into relic keeps. Encourages attackers to fight over Relics.

Tue 11 Dec 2018 11:55 PM by Lewk

This is a great system. Make relics swap hands more often and only let the power creep over time with real effort. Great change, you guys always deliver.

Wed 12 Dec 2018 12:14 AM by thirian24

Can you make it where everybody in the Relic Raid BG (inside the Lord Room) gets credit when the relic is capped, instead of only the group that has the Relic?

Wed 12 Dec 2018 2:25 AM by Dimir

I like what you had already done with relics, and I so I want to like these changes but I'm afraid that this system will rapidly lead to no one bothering to raid relic keeps (lots of effort) because it is so easy to lose them later in off peak hours.

Maybe that's okay though, because if that happens you can nudge the system one way or another to make it work for the server and population.

Wed 12 Dec 2018 4:20 AM by Raunz

Excellent system, this will make RvR more active for people who prefer to just keep defend or take.

Wed 12 Dec 2018 7:11 AM by Sepplord

Imo the change sounds intresting and i rather have underpowered relics that noone cares about than OP boni and one realms domination snowballing into a huge population imbalance.

One point to think about, regarding the claims that noone will care to take relics if it is so easy to retake them. If they are much easier to retake, then the efforts of defending them in the first place will also be lesser. So it might also make relic keep raids easier because it doesn't mobilize everyone to suicide from everywhere across the world to hurry to the defense.

I know how back then i once was about to log out and while sitting down saw that our relics were getting attacked...it turned into almost an allnighter of defending/repping/etc... and that was a GREAT experience.
BUT i cannot do that anymore, and i guess many many players nowadays also cannot do that anymore. And having to sleep/work/etc... and coming back to your realms relics being gone and almost unreachable doesn't sound appealing

Wed 12 Dec 2018 1:44 PM by florin

The main concern I hear is that these changes would make relic recovery a trivial matter in so much that relic raids will not be worth the effort. It’s possible to tweak the settings to have realm guards at the regular keeps - at certain levels etc. even have them protect the caravans as escorts. So recovering become bigger effort than a normal keep take but not as much as raiding the relic keep.

Wed 12 Dec 2018 5:32 PM by BaldEagle

defiasbandit wrote: ↑
Tue 11 Dec 2018 10:05 PM
Make it so enemy relics must be held in either Dun Crauchon, Caer Benowyc, or Bledmeer Faste. Make those 3 keeps relic keeps now.

Never be able to defend those keeps as the travel distance is too great.

Wed 12 Dec 2018 5:45 PM by defiasbandit

BaldEagle wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Dec 2018 5:32 PM
defiasbandit wrote: ↑
Tue 11 Dec 2018 10:05 PM
Make it so enemy relics must be held in either Dun Crauchon, Caer Benowyc, or Bledmeer Faste. Make those 3 keeps relic keeps now.

Never be able to defend those keeps as the travel distance is too great.

Theyd be relic keeps now.

Wed 12 Dec 2018 6:08 PM by Naturedruid

sounds pretty fucking cool

should make for quite a bit of frontier RvR action!

Wed 12 Dec 2018 9:54 PM by Ownnyn

I think people underestimate how difficult a relic raid is right now. This means making retaking relics easier a good balance choice. The problem i see atm, is if effort isnt worth the initial raid in the first place. Basically will 5% that doesnt immediately take effect worth it if the relics are reset so easily? If relics were easier to take maybe. But ultimately i think the average player really wouldnt care about putting forth the effort to take something that has no immediate impact, and is likely retaken before any impact, and even if it isnt, 5% isnt that much.

It just seems to me a 3 prong attack to devalue relics. Make them weaker, make them harder to defend, and make them not have immediate impact.

If relics are being kept in keeps, then make the value back to 10%. Theres no reason to nerf the effect and the ability to defend.

Wed 12 Dec 2018 10:11 PM by Boric

This seems like a very odd change right before servers shut down for preparation for live. There will be 0 testing of this.

As many people have echo'ed; this has the potential to completely ruin relic's being taken (much to the happiness of the 8mans). Here is a good idea of how this will play out.

1. Realm will take oppositions Relic in a couple hour Relic Raid (maybe defenders come, maybe not).
2. Realm loses relic in 24hours when keep gets taken as each timezone has a significantly different population. During this time there are very minimal bonuses granted to the realm that owns the relic.
3. Realm will take opposition Relic again (maybe weeks later they get the motivation). This time there are minimal defenders as the 8 mans have no desire to defend, and the casuals have learned there is no need to defend as the retake will be 100x easier.
a. During the time of a relic raid, realm will go take 3-4 keeps from opposition before relic has been taken giving the Relic taker team minimal places to put relic.
4. Repeat of #2.
5. No one cares to attack relics any longer and they are never taken. At this point they might as well be removed. 8-men rejoice as they only want a 8-men playground and this has helped create it.

I really wish that when major changes were made the community was provided a little more flavor as to why the changes were made. In addition there was a section in the forum made for 'community votes' and where upcoming changes could be discussed by the community. In the last month it has seems there has been 0 community interaction and large game changing changes thrown down our throats multiple times.

Sad change of events for such a promising start.

Thu 13 Dec 2018 1:55 PM by Tree

Dont know how I feel about this one. I always liked the importance relic keeps had, espacially with several relics in them. Made it often crucial to defend and quickly repair them, even if you lost one relic to the enemy less they come back and take the rest. The normal old frontier keeps arent really made for relic warfare and I fear we create a mechanic with constant INC at keeps with relics in them and a long term situation where every realm just sits on their own relics without bothering to raid for more.
At a normal relic raid, attackers heavily outnumber defenders initially. The only way to repell a relic raid is the strong npc defense force, 3 strong doors and most importantly two side entry points for defenders with a safespot (guard room over the doors) to harass and slow down the attacking force.
Normal frontier keeps dont have that, it will be utterly futile to try to defend a relic there unless more and extreme changes are introduced.

Sun 16 Dec 2018 12:59 AM by defiasbandit

Relics should be held only in Relic Keeps. I would change it back to how it was before. Normal keeps wouldn't house enemy relics.

The charging bonus would scale down instead of up. This way you reduce powercreep of relic ownership. I would return the damage bonuses to 10%, because now they would scale down, so you wouldn't have the full 20% bonus pretty much ever. Even if you owned 2 Magic Relics you would have some bonus combination of 1-10% depending on how long you've held the relics. Recapturing a relic would reset the bonus to 10%. Once a relic drains from 10% to 0% it would reset and return to a home keep.

Let's say Hibernia owned the Midgard and Albion power relics. The Albion power relic would be at 1%. The recently captured Midgard relic would be at 8%. If Albion came to recapture their power relic, Hibernia would have reason to defend Dun Dagda since they would risk losing their 8% Midgard relic as well. Once the Albion power relic reached 0% it would return to the Albion relic keep.

Some of you will say well then what's the point of defending if the enemy relic is at a low damage %. Well I think its a good thing if underdog realms can recapture their relics and earn bonuses, even if it is short-lived. We want all realms to be taking part in relics and for the bonuses to be balanced appropriately.

Magic Relic:

Day 1: 10% damage bonus
Day 2: 9% damage bonus
Day 3: 8% damage bonus
Day 4: 7% damage bonus
Day 5: 6% damage bonus
Day 6: 5% damage bonus
Day 7: 4% damage bonus
Day 8: 3% damage bonus
Day 9: 2% damage bonus
Day 10: 1% damage bonus

Strength Relic:

Day 1: 10% damage bonus
Day 2: 9% damage bonus
Day 3: 8% damage bonus
Day 4: 7% damage bonus
Day 5: 6% damage bonus
Day 6: 5% damage bonus
Day 7: 4% damage bonus
Day 8: 3% damage bonus
Day 9: 2% damage bonus
Day 10: 1% damage bonus

Sun 16 Dec 2018 9:31 AM by Kaziera

do this and nobody has any motivation to take relics. 10% tops in the timeframe of 10 days ? not worth it for timedeprived adults.

Sun 16 Dec 2018 11:21 AM by

Uthred

Pls defias, this thread is not about any different relic system but about our actual system. Please post any suggestion in the suggestion section.

Sun 16 Dec 2018 5:34 PM by defiasbandit

Woops. I posted a new suggestion in the suggestion forums.

Uthred, I've been talking to guilds that focus on keep/relic takes and they are pretty upset with the new system. They think its not rewarding at all for taking relics. I agree with them.

Mon 17 Dec 2018 12:06 AM by Hector

Good changes imo. Makes defending "normal" keeps more important and will concentrate action in otherwise less-than-desirable areas. If the "zerg guilds" dont want to organize relic raids anymore bc of a perceived lack of worthwhile-ness, that is also good, b/c it makes them come out and play instead of hump keeps.

Fri 28 Dec 2018 4:44 AM by Salviati

I hate memes, but I've never seen a more apt situation for the Ryan Reynolds "but why?" meme. This is a ridiculously terrible design choice with no merit.

Mon 7 Jan 2019 1:42 AM by jg777

Over all this seems to be a devaluation of Relics which may make RvR less about Relics and keeps and more just about PvP fights, RR ranks etc, and possibly guilds defending their own keeps as a pride thing. If relics aren’t worth focusing on and it largely becomes about 8v8, guild battles, and such then you may have people wondering if RvR’ing in battlegrounds isn’t just as rewarding as Frontiers- especially casuals who are mostly in it for a good time with the limited time they have. There has to be something centric to the endgame that draws mass scale warfare, that affects everyone in the realm, good or bad. That’s what DAoC is all about. Keep relics worthwhile I say, and find another idea to assist in realm balance.