--SUGGESTION-- : Battle Grounds needs a NEW Rule

[Peteroid]

Battle Grounds has turned into the following...

- the high-level players stake out the entrance to the ore
- the low-level players try to get ore, and return it to base

this results in high-level players who COULDN'T CARE LESS about the goal of the game... which is to score enough points to win (i assume the goal of the game is what you have established as the 'win' condition)... instead, we have low-level players running a GANTLET of high-level players who then get EXTREMELY ahead of the game buy amassing tons of honor...

so BG needs THIS NEW RULE:

PLAYERS MAY *NOT* ATTACK ANOTHER PLAYER UNLESS THEY HAVE TAKEN BACK ORE TO THE BASE - UPON TAKING ORE BACK TO THE BASE, THEY ARE GRANTED 3 ATTACKS... TAKING BACK MORE ORE ACCUMULATES ATTACKS...

if you don't FORCE people to get ore, the BG is just a honor mill for high-level players at the expense of low-level players... and makes BG a non-game... the 'winning' team often has lost ground to the 'losing' team... and that's not very good design!

[CondorHero]

There is a lot of incentive for players to attack other players (e.g to gain honor), while very few incentive to cart (30 honor vs 90 honor).

Perhaps a change-about in the rewards would help. E.g, the winning team gets 900 honor, and the losing team gets 30 honor.
Then everyone may decide to cart instead.

[Peteroid]

both ideas are good.... i'd like to see both implemented...

part of the reason for the rule i suggested is to force the players at the top of the food chain to stop attacking once in a while!

[Rex_Typhoon]

Several problems with that Condor.

#1 - You get points for killing other players, so even if you up the rewards, you're giving players an incentive to kill more (honour, winning honour, points), and to not let people get to the crystal fields in the first place (at least right now I can get the higher levels to back off long enough to let me get shards - if they think it's going to help my team get ahead, they won't even let me get close).

#2 - While the patch is addressing the issue of tiering, is it addressing balance as well? At this time, I've seen woefully unbalanced BGs where you have one team that has 10+ top end players vs a team with maybe 3 players; or you have teams where the highest BR is 25K vs a team where the average BR is 27K. Will this be covered in the patch? If not, then see #1.

#3 - Honour among Guildies - I know on our server, Guildmates do NOT attack guildmates. Which means the top Guilds with the strongest players will run around the BG ganking lower players because they refuse to attack their own guildmates who are the only viable same-level option. Now, hopefully the cross-server element will relieve us of this, but in the event that you have the same people against each other from the same guild refusing to fight each other (unless they are extremely low on health and would rather give their guildmate the honour instead of someone else), then you wind up with the possibility of having lower level players targeted repeatedly.

#4 - Ten BGs a day with the patch where 8 of them only count towards honour - do I have to explain this one?

I agree that incentives have to change - maybe have a random shard that is ultra good or gives something like shadow crystals or soul crystals. Something to emphasize carting over killing. So long as you have point #4 though, I don't think the incentives will matter beyond the first two BGs, and you'll be lucky if you get a BG that has only people doing their first two of the day.

[Peteroid]

the BG also needs more brackets... on our server we have lvl 55 players mixed with lvl 40 players... this is not in the least bit fair...

i recommend SOFT brackets... where they overlap, and one can choose... of course higher brackets have higher regards..

for example, these brackets: 20-40, 30-50, 40-60, etc...

[CondorHero]

the BG also needs more brackets... on our server we have lvl 55 players mixed with lvl 40 players... this is not in the least bit fair...

i recommend SOFT brackets... where they overlap, and one can choose... of course higher brackets have higher regards..

for example, these brackets: 20-40, 30-50, 40-60, etc...

Brackets will be implemented soon.

[KnowingEyes7]

the BG also needs more brackets... on our server we have lvl 55 players mixed with lvl 40 players... this is not in the least bit fair...

i recommend SOFT brackets... where they overlap, and one can choose... of course higher brackets have higher regards..

for example, these brackets: 20-40, 30-50, 40-60, etc...

1.6X will introduce overlapping brackets but there is no way a player will be allowed to choose his or her bracket. Abuse abounds.

[Peteroid]

cool about the coming-soon brackets...

btw.. a good indication something needs fixing is that it is now standard practice for many low-level players to enter a BG and just sit in holding... and half the time they still get the win rewards, while preventing the high-level from getting honor... sadly, this is often a good strategy (in contrast to offering oneself to others to let THEM get honor)...

[Ashanie]

you have a chance to get 1-3 honor carting or im a elite crusader i get 59 honor for sometimes less than 1min of fighting..but brackets coming on s1 today lol so gonna be some 2min fights!

[ShiKKihS]

BG is all about pvp.. ores synthesized to chest to chest are just extras.. i say fail..

also, ores gives points for the team.. more ores = immunity from attacks disappear? u say? ok after gathering 3 ores a player killed that lowlvl.. ok to make short u will both receive points.. another fail.. coz that would make both teams having points and will have a chance of getting same number of points on both teams.. @_@

[Rex_Typhoon]

What you could do if it is really that much of a concern is integrate a fixed parameter - just as you can't attack people 10 levels below you in the Wilds, why not implement a BR limit to prevent guys with insane BR from attacking those with a crappy BR? Say a +/- 3K difference? That way lower levels in a given tier are protected from the higher levels in the tier, unless they are good enough to take them. Make sure the Dryad's Blessing is taken into account too (so those who get buffed 20% or 40% are viable targets now, but at the same time, can't start going after weaker players).

Just a possible solution.

[Peteroid]

BG is all about pvp.. ores synthesized to chest to chest are just extras.. i say fail..

also, ores gives points for the team.. more ores = immunity from attacks disappear? u say? ok after gathering 3 ores a player killed that lowlvl.. ok to make short u will both receive points.. another fail.. coz that would make both teams having points and will have a chance of getting same number of points on both teams.. @_@

it is the incentive for ore that causes the two teams to engage... otherwise there would be no reason for anyone but the top players to enter the field... there would be no BG at all without the ore!

here's why: the ONLY reason in a 40+ bracket for a level 40 player to enter is to try to sneak by higher level players who are already in battle and grab ore... do you know the principle of induction? since no level 40 will enter the field, now no level 41 will since they would be the lowest level... so now no level 42 would... and so on... this continues until you realize only the players at the very top would (in their right mind) enter the field... so no ore, no BG!

your argument about how this might result in a tie has nothing to do with this topic... that can happen now for the same reasons you described... and besides, any rule that results in closer competitions is by definition a good balancing mechanism!

[KnowingEyes7]

What you could do if it is really that much of a concern is integrate a fixed parameter - just as you can't attack people 10 levels below you in the Wilds, why not implement a BR limit to prevent guys with insane BR from attacking those with a crappy BR? Say a +/- 3K difference? That way lower levels in a given tier are protected from the higher levels in the tier, unless they are good enough to take them. Make sure the Dryad's Blessing is taken into account too (so those who get buffed 20% or 40% are viable targets now, but at the same time, can't start going after weaker players).

Just a possible solution.

The BR idea was proposed for the arena but there has to be a reward for Balening. Equalizing the field by BR is likely the best way to promote fairness but it ultimately discourages spending. In addition, you'll have to take into consideration some of the players that are very high in BR and are onto an island themselves: the +/- 3K BR still places them out of bounds.

In the end, though the rolling level restriction as proposed won't be used, the level bracket will be. This will still reward Balening - probably the ultimate goal of the developer and publisher alike.