Experimentally remove "Fight in Emain/Odins/Hadrians" from the short-term task rotation

Hello,

I know this suggestion might trigger outrage, but please take a moment and think it through.

I observe that (especially during EU prime time), the zergfest is the worst during the "Fight in Emain/Odins/Hadrians" task. That is because these zones are so small and you have the milegate chokepoints.

As soon as the tasks switch to keeps and domination, it feels like a great relief. You still have a lot of action in Emain/Odins/Hadrians, because 2 of the realms have to drive through in order to reach Breifine/Jamtland/Pennine. However the zergs split up to some extent during domination; and in the case of keep tasks, the zergs are bound to one specific spot, which makes it easy to either join the fight there or dodge the zergfest entirely.

Let's imagine a situation where the "Fight in Emain/Odins/Hadrians" tasks are removed. Instead, there might be an additional keep task before the domination task starts so the time we stay in the same realm remains the same. Even during off-prime times, you could linger at the mile gates or the zone entrances in order to ambush enemies. Keep tasks define a single point of concentrated action, while domination tasks clearly indicate where enemies are ( "Hibernia have taken Jamtlant Center" messages etc).

People will encounter each other in Emain/Odins/Hadrians anway, so imho there is no need to make a task specifically for staying there and clogging everything.

Tue 16 Oct 2018 2:24 PM by Magesty

I think one of the main goals of the task system is to have massive zerg fights that are easily accessible by all. Ideally you want to create situations where casual players can wander out and find action they can participate in as well as tons of people they can potentially group with immediately. The portal zone tasks are perfect for this and in some ways even replace the need for a realmwar map.

You don't want players to always be stuck in a situation where the are thinking, "Well, I have two options to reach the task location... I can sprint through the milegate alone and embrace my inevitable death by the enemies that are perpetually camped there, or I can sit here idly and wait for some players to tag along with because I'm terrified of dying." It is shocking how many spineless players will choose the latter option and it inevitably leads to Uthgard-style stagnation.

I get the impression from your post that you are a little too caught up in the 1.65 8man mentality to see the bigger picture with the tasks. Casuals are good for the server. Zergs are good for the server. PuGs sitting at milegates ambushing soloers and small mans uncontested are not good for the server. There will still be plenty of time for that to happen during the other two task types, but at least with the portal zone tasks the zergers have a chance to congregate somewhat safely and quickly.

When the population is booming the portal zone tasks are going to be absolute fucking chaos and personally I can't wait to see how it turns out. Hopefully it facilitates casuals consistently heading out and looking for realm mates instead of sitting at the keep with their tail between their legs as we have seen on so many free shards before.

Tue 16 Oct 2018 4:16 PM by schreon

This is not about casual or elite. If a casual player wanders out in order to find action, he gets wiped away by an enemy zerg (maybe even an invisible stealther zerg). During the portal zone tasks, zergs wipe through those zones like frenzied sponges, because there is no exact designation (as opposed to domination and keeptakes). From a casual perspective, where is the difference between getting killed by a high RR stealther, an elite 8man or a 32man zerg of enemy casuals?

The viability of just taking off with whatever you got is even lower when giant zergs steamroll over the map without being bound to a specific place. This also forces people to wait until a zerg gathers at the portal keep, exactly as described by yourself in your post.

That being said, I completely support the idea of enabling that ideal scenario where you can just leave your portal keep, enter a massive battle, rinse repeat (like it had been during the cathal zergball event, which I really enjoyed by the way!). But I do not see this happening during Portal Zone tasks currently, especially not with roaming zergs.

But maybe you are right and those massive battles comes to existence as soon as there are 500+ players in the same portal zone. Maybe 100 is not enough.