Edit NF Drastically - Phoenix Freeshard

Looking through the NF thread, I saw one problem consistently: NF is too large. Is it possible to shrink its size?
Spitballing here:

*teleport keeps moved up to "top" of their zone--reduces travel-by-foot time into one's own zones in event teleportation is not available
*invisible walls placed, walling off teleport keep zones. Thereby, Forest Sauvage, Snowdonia, Cruachan Gorge, Mount Collory, Yggdra Forest, and Uppland removed from RvR except as teleport zones
*boats cannot be disembarked. Only available to take you to enemy end-zones (Emain, Odin's, Hadrian's). Can implement NPC at end of route to prevent abuse by enemies (probably a better way to do this)

This restores OF movement to NF, in which players start from their border keeps, and either go directly to enemy zone, or move up through their own, with teleportation acting as a modifier that can be removed/added by taking keeps. This will reduce the unorderly movement of players, shrink area to find players, and make it more logical, which means slightly easier to predict where enemies are. Furthermore, the delay natural in taking a boat ride acts as a permanent malus on sieging the enemy--no relic movement prevention timer necessary!

*add intel to towers (Talk to Lord and he'll tell you number of enemies in area--stealthed or otherwise. Maybe only every 30s, reduce server load, and make intel slightly imperfect)

Warmap
Pink = new Teleport Keep
Red Square = Zone Walls placed to remove zone from RvR
[attachment=0]NEW_NF.png[/attachment]

Tue 11 Jun 2019 8:17 PM by ExcretusMaximus

Isavyr wrote: ↑
Tue 11 Jun 2019 5:27 PM
Looking through the NF thread, I saw one problem consistently: NF is too large.

Isn't it the exact same size with an island in the middle thrown in?

Tue 11 Jun 2019 8:25 PM by cere2

It is the same size with added EV zone.
It's not too big, some people just have not had the chance to learn the ways of NF yet.

Portal keeps in OF basically = boats in NF, except for the fact that you can choose where to /disembark in NF and have no choice in OF.
EV can be a long way to get from one realm to another but typically that is where 8v8 battles are found. Most solo/small take the boats to find the action.

Also, once a realm has captured the keep and towers, their realm can port to that keep etc creating instant action at least between 2 realms, and typically all 3.

Tue 11 Jun 2019 10:06 PM by Isavyr

ExcretusMaximus wrote: ↑
Tue 11 Jun 2019 8:17 PM
Isn't it the exact same size with an island in the middle thrown in?

I don't know whether it's the same size, zone for zone, but NF zones feel larger for a few reasons, none of which have to do with the zone size itself:
1) Less inaccessible terrain--Old Emain is about 30% inaccessible
2) More open space--OF travel corridors were small, even though much of the space was accessible (Odin's Gate, for example). This gives people more room which to roam.
3) The transport system allows population to spread out easier. You'll see this with boats, and it's a bit comical--one boat going this way and another going that way.

Ignoring teleporters for simplicity, OF has four access points: Two border keeps in one's own frontier, and a portal keep in each enemy frontier. Meanwhile, in NF, you have 11 access points--3 boat access points into each enemy realm, 3 of your own, and the standard portal keeps. This makes movement a lot harder to track/predict. Some of that might be a blessing, hard to say. But at any rate, I agree with the complaint that NF feels too big for the server population.

This may work itself out when people decide to only use certain zones, but that doesn't negate the fact that it's too large, either. Just my thoughts anyway.

Wed 12 Jun 2019 6:48 AM by

Uthred

Every NF zone has the exact same size like an OF zone. The only thing that NF is bigger compared to OF is the extra zone EV (and the extra zone "Irish Sea"

. I guess it feels bigger for many, as every zone has more options to go than for example the more or less only one way that most players go from mmg to amg and back. If you compare OF Pennine to NF Pennine, NF Pennine also feels way bigger, because there are less mobs (hidden behind hills) that you can run into. In general the NF land is more flat and there has more options to go than many "one-way" OF zones.

I made a "test" where I was running with speed 6 from DL to Crauchon in OF and NF. It took me 5:30 in NF, 6:10 in OF.

Wed 12 Jun 2019 7:14 AM by labra

Uthred wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Jun 2019 6:48 AM
I made a "test" where I was running with speed 6 from DL to Crauchon in OF and NF. It took me 5:30 in NF, 6:10 in OF.

What shoe brand? Nike?

Wed 12 Jun 2019 7:39 AM by Druth

labra wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Jun 2019 7:14 AM
Uthred wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Jun 2019 6:48 AM
I made a "test" where I was running with speed 6 from DL to Crauchon in OF and NF. It took me 5:30 in NF, 6:10 in OF.

What shoe brand? Nike?

DL is closer to Emain in NF...

Wed 12 Jun 2019 7:44 AM by inoeth

Druth wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Jun 2019 7:39 AM
labra wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Jun 2019 7:14 AM
Uthred wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Jun 2019 6:48 AM
I made a "test" where I was running with speed 6 from DL to Crauchon in OF and NF. It took me 5:30 in NF, 6:10 in OF.

What shoe brand? Nike?

DL is closer to Emain in NF...

blasphemy! NF zones are so much bigger!!!!111

Wed 12 Jun 2019 7:46 AM by Druth

I love it, but not flaming love, some changes can make me love it even more

- Hastener tokens, make them not usable 1 min after rvr combat. I ran around some in Albion, and some ellyl hit me, and it was really slow mo after that. I think this needs to happen even if we keep OF anyway... the 1 min CD will mean haste classes are still great.

- Tone down guards... again... NF is made for ToA (and maybe even CL's), my Valk could solo a green tower, easy, if no one came and stopped me. At least make towers doable in most duo's.

Wed 12 Jun 2019 7:21 PM by teiloh

I think NF could resolve a lot of its problems of being too empty if ...

Certain areas were dynamically walled off depending on player population. e.g. if we had 3,000 players, all would be open, but if we had say 250 total in the frontiers all but the two forward zones of each realm would be completely closed off by mob/guard hordes or environmental effects that almost insta kill. With very low pops most of the middle zones would likewise be blocked. Conquest of a zone would however open up the next one, this would depend on taking a large share of keeps/towers.

Maybe solo players could be allowed to maneuver some in the blocked off zones by purchasing items to manipulate mob aggro. Say there's 180 people on and only Island/Hads/Emain/Odin's is open; soloers would have side objectives/quests given to them in parts of Penn/Breif/Jamt that would require running through mob swarms, but these will be non-hostile if you have an item that only persists while you're solo/small man/8 man etc. Just spitballing.

Uthred wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Jun 2019 6:48 AM
Every NF zone has the exact same size like an OF zone. The only thing that NF is bigger compared to OF is the extra zone EV (and the extra zone "Irish Sea". I guess it feels bigger for many, as every zone has more options to go than for example the more or less only one way that most players go from mmg to amg and back. If you compare OF Pennine to NF Pennine, NF Pennine also feels way bigger, because there are less mobs (hidden behind hills) that you can run into. In general the NF land is more flat and there has more options to go than many "one-way" OF zones.

I made a "test" where I was running with speed 6 from DL to Crauchon in OF and NF. It took me 5:30 in NF, 6:10 in OF.

iirc the zone walls in OF are more restrictive and there is much less "vertical" space with bridges, towers, keep walls, etc. But cutting people off from diving significantly reduces that.