The Flag Task - Phoenix Freeshard

I have to imagine the current design of the CTF mechanic was to provide group versus group content in a dedicated zone with rewards. Which is great. Except the way it is now only forces people to zerg to each flag in a ball, while the other zerg takes the flag on the other side. Think musical chairs where the zerg rarely fights each other but maybe once near the end of the task. Outside of that its the zerg mowing down the few visible guys who decided to come guard a flag, and stealthers waiting to recap the flag.

We can safely say this wasnt the design intent. So what can be done?

1. Make the flags static. Meaning they are always up. Put 2-3 in each of the zones, Penn Mt, jartland mt, and Brief. The number of flags matters here, and could be adjusted based on server population.

2. Make it so that the reward does not happen until ALL OF THE FLAGS ARE HELD BY A SINGLE REALM. Now it gets interesting right. You want the reward bonus? Now you have to split the zerg. Now you have to form those 8 man groups and send them to different areas. Now you get your desired small man/8 man fights at a flag and not a zerg. It would be impossible for the zerg to take them all. Not only that, there also will need to be defenders. Giving our stealther friends something to do.

3. Make the reward increase in tier the longer the flags are held. The first bonus should come when all are taken. Then say every 10-30 minutes another tick happens which opens up new rewards or increases the current rewards. This promotes the realm that holds the flags to defend them and not just abandon the area. The fight will continue.

This also means the task would basically always have to be on, and not a rotating side. Which I dont think a lot of people would complain about.

This task requires full realm cooperation, team work, small group, stealther, and 8 man play. Every single play style criteria is met.

Thu 25 Oct 2018 4:49 AM by Anaethema

I wish the flag tasks worked differently.. the more players in the cap area, the faster it caps.

For example.. a single flag has 180 value. A single player can cap it in 180 seconds but a group of 6 can cap it in 30 seconds. Right now the timer is the same whether it's a solo player capping or 2 FGs and that just doesn't seem right to me.

Sun 4 Nov 2018 3:05 PM by Sepplord

That sounds great on paper, but will lead to one (or even two) sides simply keeping the winning realm from completing by not splitting.

Such a system usually leads to long boring stalemates until one side (in this case two sides) give up and don't bother anymore.

To otherwise complete the task, one realm would basically need enough people to have a zerg as big as the enemy zerg at EACH flag.

Oftentimes the realm zerging one flag will even come out on top, since they will get fed kills in a few fights before the attackers of that flag stop and default to one of the others

Mon 5 Nov 2018 9:48 PM by defiasbandit

How about we get rid of the flag task and return the emphasis on keeps.

Tue 6 Nov 2018 6:29 AM by Bethoc

I'm with defiasbandit on this one. The entire concept of CTF/Domination in DAoC is gimmicky to me and doesn't feel grounded in the world. It's an artificial point of contention, there is nothing at the flag worth fighting over. It's by far my least favorite task, and I skip it unless my RvR group is desperate for RP.

If the worldbuilding team could create supply depots or outposts, that would be far more interesting. Controlling these could provide a % RP bonus modifier (like +5% RP per controlled depot) for every other RvR activity within that zone, and it would serve as an alternative target for a group when direct assault upon a keep is too difficult due to a numbers disadvantage.

Existing supply caravans could be rerouted to these supply depots. Say, 3 depots in the general vicinity of each keep. Depots are claimed by capturing the point with players present, identical to the existing CTF task, and any guards successfully arriving with a supply caravan are stationed there - meaning a depot gradually builds up a respectable NPC force, they don't vanish.

Note that slain supply caravans currently reduce keep door health, and this depot system ties into that - the realm controlling the associated keep can't just sit safely inside and camp, the door will eventually fall if they don't retake the supply depots and protect their caravans. It forces them to sally out and fight or lose a battle of attrition, like a real keep siege.

You could even implement a straight replacement for the removed CTF task. 'Domination' would instead be an objective to starve a keep by controlling all 3 supply depots until the points goal is reached. Then the next task is cycled to a keep assault/defense on that associated keep, if one of the two non-controlling realms wins the Domination task.

Tue 6 Nov 2018 8:34 AM by Cadebrennus

Bethoc wrote: ↑
Tue 6 Nov 2018 6:29 AM
I'm with defiasbandit on this one. The entire concept of CTF/Domination in DAoC is gimmicky to me and doesn't feel grounded in the world. It's an artificial point of contention, there is nothing at the flag worth fighting over. It's by far my least favorite task, and I skip it unless my RvR group is desperate for RP.

If the worldbuilding team could create supply depots or outposts, that would be far more interesting. Controlling these could provide a % RP bonus modifier (like +5% RP per controlled depot) for every other RvR activity within that zone, and it would serve as an alternative target for a group when direct assault upon a keep is too difficult due to a numbers disadvantage.

Existing supply caravans could be rerouted to these supply depots. Say, 3 depots in the general vicinity of each keep. Depots are claimed by capturing the point with players present, identical to the existing CTF task, and any guards successfully arriving with a supply caravan are stationed there - meaning a depot gradually builds up a respectable NPC force, they don't vanish.

Note that slain supply caravans currently reduce keep door health, and this depot system ties into that - the realm controlling the associated keep can't just sit safely inside and camp, the door will eventually fall if they don't retake the supply depots and protect their caravans. It forces them to sally out and fight or lose a battle of attrition, like a real keep siege.

You could even implement a straight replacement for the removed CTF task. 'Domination' would instead be an objective to starve a keep by controlling all 3 supply depots until the points goal is reached. Then the next task is cycled to a keep assault/defense on that associated keep, if one of the two non-controlling realms wins the Domination task.

You know what's funny is I was just lamenting the other day that there are all these cool structures (taco bell, towers, villages, etc.) littered about the frontier but no reason to fight in or near them. Adding more structures at the flag points or putting flag points on the structures would definitely make the flag fights feel more grounded in a less abstract goal.