Even after fixing the hole they fixed with champions, there are issues with it. The system no longer represents a players combat ability in the actual game world. Rather, the system is going to be more one of the winner being the player that spends the most time equipping their arena proxy - a task that surves no purpose outside of the mayoral arena.
I believe that the dev team wants players to spend time on becoming mayor prior to the selection process.
Divine nodes require players to spend substantial time questing for the church in or der to be chosen.
Economic nodes require players to spend time padding their bank account.
Scientific nodes require players to spend time networking, to include building and sustaining a guild / alliance.
Forcing those striving to become mayor of a military node to spend time building up their champion would run along the same vein. I mean, otherwise people could luckily stroll into a node at the last opportunity to sign up, spend no time prepping, and "possibly" win the contest.
Seems to me that a little more effort should be involved.
@Vhaeyne I really like your general idea! I think that fixes a bunch of things. There's ofcourse some minor problems like, people wanting to grind arena points but not wanting to become mayor, they might throw the election system.
Simple fix for that would be to have them vote if they want to participate or not, and if they don't, the next highest person on the boards will be asked to participate instead.
That's a cool idea, +10 points.
P.S. Let's keep it civil guys, didn't want to start an argument with this thread, just discussion.
I think it should be a tournament bracket. If they don't want 1v1 for balance reasons, then use teams instead. The winning team would need to cast votes for their choice of mayor out of the members of their team. If there is a tie, then a random team member is chosen as mayor.
Randomly seed everyone in the bracket so that large guilds can't try to snipe their main competition with specific counter builds. For this reason, they don't need to have pvp ranking be a factor in the mayoral election process.
The idea of a military node is that the mayor is the best at pvp. So, if teams are used instead of 1v1, then they need to be small teams (like 3v3), to ensure that someone doesn't just buy their way onto a good team and get carried to mayor. At least the mayor will have to be very good at pvp, or their team won't win the tournament.
Anonymous ffa battlefield won't work. People will have a system and communicate via 3rd party apps like discord. For example, you could tell your entire guild to not attack anyone (healing people running in that direction as necessary) and run to the northwest corner as soon as they spawn in. After everyone else is dead, then verify that everyone left is part of the guild via discord, and then suicide everyone who is not the guild's choice for mayor.
I think it should be a tournament bracket. If they don't want 1v1 for balance reasons, then use teams instead. The winning team would need to cast votes for their choice of mayor out of the members of their team. If there is a tie, then a random team member is chosen as mayor.
Randomly seed everyone in the bracket so that large guilds can't try to snipe their main competition with specific counter builds. For this reason, they don't need to have pvp ranking be a factor in the mayoral election process.
The idea of a military node is that the mayor is the best at pvp. So, if teams are used instead of 1v1, then they need to be small teams (like 3v3), to ensure that someone doesn't just buy their way onto a good team and get carried to mayor. At least the mayor will have to be very good at pvp, or their team won't win the tournament.
Anonymous ffa battlefield won't work. People will have a system and communicate via 3rd party apps like discord. For example, you could tell your entire guild to not attack anyone (healing people running in that direction as necessary) and run to the northwest corner as soon as they spawn in. After everyone else is dead, then verify that everyone left is part of the guild via discord, and then suicide everyone who is not the guild's choice for mayor.
I like the sound of this idea a lot too! Very creative.
I do think its still possible to get carried in 3v3s though, 2 very skilled players can def carry a 3v3 if they mastered their class. Although this is definitely better than an open arena which im not too fond of.
The champions probably won't be able to heal at all. Probably won't be able to buff at all and probably won't have a forced taunt like the tank class stands at current. I don't doubt people will try to assist each other but all they could do is focus targets. They won't be able to stop focussed attacks.
The champions probably won't be able to heal at all. Probably won't be able to buff at all and probably won't have a forced taunt like the tank class stands at current. I don't doubt people will try to assist each other but all they could do is focus targets. They won't be able to stop focussed attacks.
Thats very true, it will 100% be much harder. I just don't think its a surefire way of stopping carries to mayor.
I like the champion system as it was described. Also you really have to build the champion because if you don't then being outnumbered might not even matter. That said I like the bracket system as well. I wouldn't mind if they used both.
FFA's usually just abuse dumb oversights anyway and are almost never interesting.
When we don’t have the full picture because the developers have not revealed the system in its entirety, we cannot in good conscience accuse them of not having done a good job
Your definition of "poorly thought out" is incomplete. As with most phrases, there are multiple definitions.
However, even if we go by your definition, we can still state that the system is poorly thought out.
They gave us details of the system, we pointed out issues with it, and forced them to change it. Until we have all the details of that change, we are able to state without reservation that the system is poorly thought out, as we know for an absolute fact that the details we have been given need to be changed.
You can not state that the system is not poorly thought out while still maintaining dignity. Intrepid have said the system was poorly thought out - yet you are trying to claim otherwise.
Even after fixing the hole they fixed with champions, there are issues with it. The system no longer represents a players combat ability in the actual game world. Rather, the system is going to be more one of the winner being the player that spends the most time equipping their arena proxy - a task that surves no purpose outside of the mayoral arena.
I believe that the dev team wants players to spend time on becoming mayor prior to the selection process.
Divine nodes require players to spend substantial time questing for the church in or der to be chosen.
Economic nodes require players to spend time padding their bank account.
Scientific nodes require players to spend time networking, to include building and sustaining a guild / alliance.
I'm not sure how anyone could think a FFA arena wouldn't require at least as much time as a scientific node in regards to networking and forming alliances, as well as an economic node in regards to equipping a few dozen players.
On the other hand, if you go the 1v1 arena where you pick a character on your account to use, you have the fairly high expense of needing to maintain a number of characters at the highest level in order to be able to conform to the games meta at each election.
If the winner of a military node is simply the player that spends the most amount of time gearing up their proxy, the leadership contest will be all too similar to that of a divine node - the arena part of it will become trivial.
Additionally, if that is indeed what the plan is, that would mean Intrepid need to continuously add new upgrades to these proxies, as players absolutely will attempt to max them out, and if players are able to max out their proxy the point you are making here about needing to spend time to become mayor falls very, very flat.
Basically, if what you are saying is true, Intrepid are committing to adding a form of perpetual progression to the game for a fight that happens once a month.
On the other hand, if you go the 1v1 arena where you pick a character on your account to use, you have the fairly high expense of needing to maintain a number of characters at the highest level in order to be able to conform to the games meta at each election.
This is why I think the combat should be skill-based, and not overly dependent on gearing. Of course, gearing should give an advantage, but it shouldn't be the only thing that matters in pvp imo. Maybe an optimally-geared player would have around a 60% theoretical win rate over an equally skilled non-optimally-geared player, not a 90-100% win rate. A more skilled player should be able to even the odds against a better geared player, as long as the gear discrepancy isn't too big.
If the winner of a military node is simply the player that spends the most amount of time gearing up their proxy, the leadership contest will be all too similar to that of a divine node - the arena part of it will become trivial.
I don't think winning a pvp tournament will ever be trivial with enough entrants. You could prepare the most, but get outplayed or make a mistake during the tournament. Also, you could get an unfavorable matchup against an anti-meta build, and lose even if you have optimized the best meta build in existence. Thus, gearing someone up doesn't mean that they will automatically win the tournament.
On the other hand, if you go the 1v1 arena where you pick a character on your account to use, you have the fairly high expense of needing to maintain a number of characters at the highest level in order to be able to conform to the games meta at each election.
This is why I think the combat should be skill-based, and not overly dependent on gearing. Of course, gearing should give an advantage, but it shouldn't be the only thing that matters in pvp imo.
This is a totally different debate, but honestly, when you are talking about the 1v1 arena for military node leadership (especially if it is a metropolis), you should just assume that there will be many highly skilled people involved.
Since these people will all be highly skilled, the only real advantage they are able to get over each other is the gear they are able to equip their proxies with - and so it still stands to reason that the player that spends the most time getting this gear will most likely be the winner.
I'm not sure how anyone could think a FFA arena wouldn't require at least as much time as a scientific node in regards to networking and forming alliances, as well as an economic node in regards to equipping a few dozen players.
On the other hand, if you go the 1v1 arena where you pick a character on your account to use, you have the fairly high expense of needing to maintain a number of characters at the highest level in order to be able to conform to the games meta at each election.
If the winner of a military node is simply the player that spends the most amount of time gearing up their proxy, the leadership contest will be all too similar to that of a divine node - the arena part of it will become trivial.
Additionally, if that is indeed what the plan is, that would mean Intrepid need to continuously add new upgrades to these proxies, as players absolutely will attempt to max them out, and if players are able to max out their proxy the point you are making here about needing to spend time to become mayor falls very, very flat.
Basically, if what you are saying is true, Intrepid are committing to adding a form of perpetual progression to the game for a fight that happens once a month.
Seems like a bad idea to me.
A military node shouldn't require the same type of time investment that a scientific node requires. If it's going to come down to who has the largest, and most coordinated guild support in the ffa arena, they might as well just make it another popular vote.
The idea that everyone who wants to be the mayor of the military node is required to not only level, but spend massive amounts of time gearing up, and learning to master, the current meta on top of their preferred build in order to achieve this goal is absurd. That defeats the purpose of having all of this class customization if the mayor must be meta.
In a sense, you're correct that the gearing up of your champion aspect will be similar to the divine node. Big difference: you have to use him effectively. If the people who truly desire mayoral status spend the time maxing out their champions, then prove their martial superiority in the arena, sounds like intent has been met. Now I will say, I don't know the best method of combat (1v1, 3v3, ffa, etc.) that would help meet this intent.
How does the idea of time investment fall flat? I believe people should be able to max out these champions. That way the playing field is level. But, it should take considerable time investment to do so. No need to constantly make it more difficult. Just make it baseline difficult. On top of that, it shouldn't be a process of spending the standard currency (economic node); It should be a unique currency that is acquired via questing/ grinding/ playing the game. Ooh, maybe by implementing a monster bounty/ challenge system that requires you to defeat certain dungeon or raid bosses, or just world elites in order to obtain the currency.
There could easily be a process of rekitting out, or repairing the kit for the mayors champion that forces him to still invest time in keeping his mayoral status.
I'm not sure how anyone could think a FFA arena wouldn't require at least as much time as a scientific node in regards to networking and forming alliances, as well as an economic node in regards to equipping a few dozen players.
On the other hand, if you go the 1v1 arena where you pick a character on your account to use, you have the fairly high expense of needing to maintain a number of characters at the highest level in order to be able to conform to the games meta at each election.
If the winner of a military node is simply the player that spends the most amount of time gearing up their proxy, the leadership contest will be all too similar to that of a divine node - the arena part of it will become trivial.
Additionally, if that is indeed what the plan is, that would mean Intrepid need to continuously add new upgrades to these proxies, as players absolutely will attempt to max them out, and if players are able to max out their proxy the point you are making here about needing to spend time to become mayor falls very, very flat.
Basically, if what you are saying is true, Intrepid are committing to adding a form of perpetual progression to the game for a fight that happens once a month.
Seems like a bad idea to me.
A military node shouldn't require the same type of time investment that a scientific node requires.
I skimmed this thread (trying to avoid the bickering about semantics), so apologies if someone already mentioned this stuff:
A tournament bracket that potentially holds hundreds of player would be almost impossible to arrange and schedule. Certainly it wouldn't work if it was 1v1, and you wanted every citizen to participate. It would take days, and half the people wouldn't be available at the scheduled time of their match...
If there is a live tournament at all, the pool of participants would need to be whittled down already so that the whole tournament could fit within prime-time (maybe over two days). A FFA with only the top 5-10% qualifying would work. Or you could use the existing arena ratings (if those are a thing?), and only allow the top rated players.
Personally, I think small arena teams with real characters would be more satisfying for participants, and possibly more entertaining for spectators. Doing 1v1s with the champion system would be lackluster unless the combat is as sharp as a fighting game (like Blade and Soul arenas). But I dunno if any of that is feasible, or if it's worth Intrepid's time.
I don't have enough insight to mention any other details. Y'all keep up the good work here. I'll be over in the DPS meter thread
A tournament bracket that potentially holds hundreds of player would be almost impossible to arrange and schedule. Certainly it wouldn't work if it was 1v1, and you wanted every citizen to participate. It would take days, and half the people wouldn't be available at the scheduled time of their match...
Ok, let's do the math. In the worst case, since each server can have a max of 10,000 people and there is a max of 5 metropolises, that's an average of 2,000 people per metropolis if we assume that literally everyone lives inside a metropolis node (which certainly won't be the case).
Now, in the worst case of 1v1, we would only need a maximum of 12 rounds to determine a winner (2^11 = 2048).
Intrepid would need to set a match time limit, because people could maliciously stall out the mayoral process to infinity without it. If we limit each match to 15min, which should be plenty for 1v1, then it would take a total of 15min*12, or 3 hours to finish the entire tournament.
This is definitely doable in 1 day. Everyone would need to commit 3 hours + an extra hour for a small amount of wiggle room between each round, on one day of the month to determine the new mayor. This does not seem very hard to arrange or schedule.
0
Options
VmanGmanMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@bigepeen The goal is 10,000 concurrent players and up to 50,000 total per server.
A tournament bracket that potentially holds hundreds of player would be almost impossible to arrange and schedule. Certainly it wouldn't work if it was 1v1, and you wanted every citizen to participate. It would take days, and half the people wouldn't be available at the scheduled time of their match...
Ok, let's do the math. In the worst case, since each server can have a max of 10,000 people and there is a max of 5 metropolises, that's an average of 2,000 people per metropolis if we assume that literally everyone lives inside a metropolis node (which certainly won't be the case).
Now, in the worst case of 1v1, we would only need a maximum of 12 rounds to determine a winner (2^11 = 2048).
Intrepid would need to set a match time limit, because people could maliciously stall out the mayoral process to infinity without it. If we limit each match to 15min, which should be plenty for 1v1, then it would take a total of 15min*12, or 3 hours to finish the entire tournament.
This is definitely doable in 1 day. Everyone would need to commit 3 hours + an extra hour for a small amount of wiggle room between each round, on one day of the month to determine the new mayor. This does not seem very hard to arrange or schedule.
Oh... For some reason I had it in my mind that it would be one match at a time. But I suppose the first several rounds could be simultaneous in separate instances.
@bigepeen The goal is 10,000 concurrent players and up to 50,000 total per server.
Unless I’ve got the meaning of concurrent wrong.. 10k concurrent players would be 2k per metropolis and that’s being generous honestly. That is the math they used for their example.. I don’t see what your point is.. I’d be confident in saying 2k people running for a military nodes mayor would be extremely unlikely.
It would be fairly easy to limit the candidates. 15 minutes is a variable easily changed based on the candidates. You’d be able to slash the amount of required rounds with a group based arena. (There really isn’t a good way of 1v1 without that seemingly unpopular champion system)
I, personally, would prefer to have a unique experience for each node's mayoral election process.
My understanding is that these node types are meant to be vastly different. And so the mind sets of it's citizens, to include the type of leader they desire and the method used to prove the leader fulfills this desire, should be different.
And, while I'll admit that the idea I posted earlier regarding the method of obtaining champion upgrades is a redressing of the divine nodes time investment, there is a big difference in the why of it.
Divine nodes (assumption incoming) will require it's mayoral candidates to perform tasks that help it's citizens. This can be achieved through gathering quests, eliminating external threats to it's citizenry, etc.
Military nodes would require feats of strength in order to obtain champion upgrades, culminating into the ultimate feat of strength, that of greatest warrior amongst the populous.
I, personally, would prefer to have a unique experience for each node's mayoral election process.
My understanding is that these node types are meant to be vastly different. And so the mind sets of it's citizens, to include the type of leader they desire and the method used to prove the leader fulfills this desire, should be different.
And, while I'll admit that the idea I posted earlier regarding the method of obtaining champion upgrades is a redressing of the divine nodes time investment, there is a big difference in the why of it.
Divine nodes (assumption incoming) will require it's mayoral candidates to perform tasks that help it's citizens. This can be achieved through gathering quests, eliminating external threats to it's citizenry, etc.
Military nodes would require feats of strength in order to obtain champion upgrades, culminating into the ultimate feat of strength, that of greatest warrior amongst the populous.
I agree that the way you go about being the leader of a military node should be different to the way you go about being the leader of a divine node, but that isn't what you said, nor what I asked for clarification on.
You said it shouldn't take as much time to be the leader of a divine node as it would to be the leader of a military node, and that is a baseless statement as far as I am concerned. If being the mayor of each node type of the same level confers the same abilities to the player, then the time investment should be on par with each other.
Divine nodes are most likely going to simply require prospective mayors run what essentially amounts to repeatable faction quests, and the player that does the most will be the mayor.
If the military node is to be decided via proxies, then gearing those proxies to a state that makes it viable to win should take up roughly that same amount of time (minus the time spent in the arena itself).
I agree that the way you go about being the leader of a military node should be different to the way you go about being the leader of a divine node, but that isn't what you said, nor what I asked for clarification on.
I, personally, would prefer to have a unique experience for each node's mayoral election process.
I wasn't specific here. What followed was an example / semi-justifying my previous idea.
But for added clarity: I view the ffa arena, guild protecting it's candidate, style of combat to be a foggy mirror image of the scientific node's popular vote because the time investment is much more heavily centered around the social aspect of the guild.
You said it shouldn't take as much time to be the leader of a divine node as it would to be the leader of a military node, and that is a baseless statement as far as I am concerned. If being the mayor of each node type of the same level confers the same abilities to the player, then the time investment should be on par with each other.
I don't believe I did.
Plus, as you continued to state, the divine node doesn't seem to have a cap on how much time you invest. So, more than likely those divine node mayoral candidates will be putting significantly more time into the process.
If the military node is to be decided via proxies, then gearing those proxies to a state that makes it viable to win should take up roughly that same amount of time (minus the time spent in the arena itself).
Plus, as you continued to state, the divine node doesn't seem to have a cap on how much time you invest. So, more than likely those divine node mayoral candidates will be putting significantly more time into the process.
None of the nodes have a time cap.
Economic node mayors can always spend more time making money, and more time making allies to assist them.
Scientific node mayors can always spend more time getting allies, and more time making coin in order to buy votes.
Divine node mayors can spend more time doing the quests, and more time making allies to assist them in doing those quests faster.
Military node mayors need this same time input. That is able to be provided for if players are in the arena, but if it is a proxy with a limited number of upgrades, there is no way at all to spend this same amount of time.
Plus, as you continued to state, the divine node doesn't seem to have a cap on how much time you invest. So, more than likely those divine node mayoral candidates will be putting significantly more time into the process.
None of the nodes have a time cap.
Economic node mayors can always spend more time making money, and more time making allies to assist them.
Scientific node mayors can always spend more time getting allies, and more time making coin in order to buy votes.
Divine node mayors can spend more time doing the quests, and more time making allies to assist them in doing those quests faster.
Military node mayors need this same time input. That is able to be provided for if players are in the arena, but if it is a proxy with a limited number of upgrades, there is no way at all to spend this same amount of time.
This is a totally different debate, but honestly, when you are talking about the 1v1 arena for military node leadership (especially if it is a metropolis), you should just assume that there will be many highly skilled people involved.
Since these people will all be highly skilled, the only real advantage they are able to get over each other is the gear they are able to equip their proxies with - and so it still stands to reason that the player that spends the most time getting this gear will most likely be the winner.
This seems like the most reasonable, and equitable, method for the military node, then.
1v1 bracket style where there is an advantage to putting in the time to gear out your champion.
That being said, a highly skilled player with minimal time investment into their champion should still have a chance of beating a low skill player with heavy investment. I don't think gearing out your champion should be an auto win. Just, a way to improve your odds.
This seems like the most reasonable, and equitable, method for the military node, then.
1v1 bracket style where there is an advantage to putting in the time to gear out your champion.
That being said, a highly skilled player with minimal time investment into their champion should still have a chance of beating a low skill player with heavy investment. I don't think gearing out your champion should be an auto win. Just, a way to improve your odds.
It will obviously only be a way to increase your odds.
The other thing that would be key with this to me is that the proxy needs to reset after each month.
All other nodes do this - it is only fair that a military node have every aspect of it's mayoral race reset for each month. It is also the only way a new player would ever be able to have a shot.
This also drastically lowers the amount of content that would be needed to make this work. Rather than needing new content each month, it would essentially be the same content each time. As long as there is more content than players are likely to get through in a month, then all is well.
This seems like the most reasonable, and equitable, method for the military node, then.
1v1 bracket style where there is an advantage to putting in the time to gear out your champion.
That being said, a highly skilled player with minimal time investment into their champion should still have a chance of beating a low skill player with heavy investment. I don't think gearing out your champion should be an auto win. Just, a way to improve your odds.
It will obviously only be a way to increase your odds.
The other thing that would be key with this to me is that the proxy needs to reset after each month.
All other nodes do this - it is only fair that a military node have every aspect of it's mayoral race reset for each month. It is also the only way a new player would ever be able to have a shot.
This also drastically lowers the amount of content that would be needed to make this work. Rather than needing new content each month, it would essentially be the same content each time. As long as there is more content than players are likely to get through in a month, then all is well.
I agree with all of the above.
Good talk, and have a good day.
This seems to be more of an intended and viable mechanic for specifically the Military Node-type, rather than a reason for concern. Different strokes for different folks - and Nodes.
This seems to be more of an intended and viable mechanic for specifically the Military Node-type, rather than a reason for concern. Different strokes for different folks - and Nodes.
It is a viable mechanic, it is the fact that it is using proxies that I dont like.
It means that rather than your actual PvP ability being tested, it is your ability to use these champions that is being tested.
It actually is using your PvP ability because the champions will most likely be balanced to be as close to each other as possible. Provided you gear them properly. So if anything it will be the best PvP test in the game compared to World PvP that isn't going to be designed around 1 vs 1s being viable at all. The balancing makes a big difference because they are going to be balanced around the possibility to be self sufficient.
With the current system people will be given pretty much equal chances of being the mayor if they put the same effort.
It actually is using your PvP ability because the champions will most likely be balanced to be as close to each other as possible. Provided you gear them properly. So if anything it will be the best PvP test in the game compared to World PvP that isn't going to be designed around 1 vs 1s being viable at all. The balancing makes a big difference because they are going to be balanced around the possibility to be self sufficient.
But it isn't testing your ability to actually PvP with your class - or with any class.
It is basically dropping the actual game combat, adding a new type of combat with it's own gearing system and testing who is good at that. May as well make the mayoral test for military nodes a competition in Overwatch or Fortnite.
It actually is using your PvP ability because the champions will most likely be balanced to be as close to each other as possible. Provided you gear them properly. So if anything it will be the best PvP test in the game compared to World PvP that isn't going to be designed around 1 vs 1s being viable at all. The balancing makes a big difference because they are going to be balanced around the possibility to be self sufficient.
With the current system people will be given pretty much equal chances of being the mayor if they put the same effort.
Well, keep in-mind that in the latest monthly Twitch stream update, the devs seemed opposed to the use of champions, even though they thought it was a neat idea. The "champions" we're talking about at this time are essentially either members of a player-organization willing to purposefully lose to someone like a guild leader, or individuals paid-off to lose their final matches to a specific person.
At the present time, this remains a "best-of" PvP competition - so it's still up to the individual to ensure that they themselves are as best-fitted for PvP as possible.
Comments
I believe that the dev team wants players to spend time on becoming mayor prior to the selection process.
Divine nodes require players to spend substantial time questing for the church in or der to be chosen.
Economic nodes require players to spend time padding their bank account.
Scientific nodes require players to spend time networking, to include building and sustaining a guild / alliance.
Forcing those striving to become mayor of a military node to spend time building up their champion would run along the same vein. I mean, otherwise people could luckily stroll into a node at the last opportunity to sign up, spend no time prepping, and "possibly" win the contest.
Seems to me that a little more effort should be involved.
Simple fix for that would be to have them vote if they want to participate or not, and if they don't, the next highest person on the boards will be asked to participate instead.
That's a cool idea, +10 points.
P.S. Let's keep it civil guys, didn't want to start an argument with this thread, just discussion.
Randomly seed everyone in the bracket so that large guilds can't try to snipe their main competition with specific counter builds. For this reason, they don't need to have pvp ranking be a factor in the mayoral election process.
The idea of a military node is that the mayor is the best at pvp. So, if teams are used instead of 1v1, then they need to be small teams (like 3v3), to ensure that someone doesn't just buy their way onto a good team and get carried to mayor. At least the mayor will have to be very good at pvp, or their team won't win the tournament.
Anonymous ffa battlefield won't work. People will have a system and communicate via 3rd party apps like discord. For example, you could tell your entire guild to not attack anyone (healing people running in that direction as necessary) and run to the northwest corner as soon as they spawn in. After everyone else is dead, then verify that everyone left is part of the guild via discord, and then suicide everyone who is not the guild's choice for mayor.
I like the sound of this idea a lot too! Very creative.
I do think its still possible to get carried in 3v3s though, 2 very skilled players can def carry a 3v3 if they mastered their class. Although this is definitely better than an open arena which im not too fond of.
Thats very true, it will 100% be much harder. I just don't think its a surefire way of stopping carries to mayor.
FFA's usually just abuse dumb oversights anyway and are almost never interesting.
U.S. East
However, even if we go by your definition, we can still state that the system is poorly thought out.
They gave us details of the system, we pointed out issues with it, and forced them to change it. Until we have all the details of that change, we are able to state without reservation that the system is poorly thought out, as we know for an absolute fact that the details we have been given need to be changed.
You can not state that the system is not poorly thought out while still maintaining dignity. Intrepid have said the system was poorly thought out - yet you are trying to claim otherwise.
I'm not sure how anyone could think a FFA arena wouldn't require at least as much time as a scientific node in regards to networking and forming alliances, as well as an economic node in regards to equipping a few dozen players.
On the other hand, if you go the 1v1 arena where you pick a character on your account to use, you have the fairly high expense of needing to maintain a number of characters at the highest level in order to be able to conform to the games meta at each election.
If the winner of a military node is simply the player that spends the most amount of time gearing up their proxy, the leadership contest will be all too similar to that of a divine node - the arena part of it will become trivial.
Additionally, if that is indeed what the plan is, that would mean Intrepid need to continuously add new upgrades to these proxies, as players absolutely will attempt to max them out, and if players are able to max out their proxy the point you are making here about needing to spend time to become mayor falls very, very flat.
Basically, if what you are saying is true, Intrepid are committing to adding a form of perpetual progression to the game for a fight that happens once a month.
Seems like a bad idea to me.
I don't think winning a pvp tournament will ever be trivial with enough entrants. You could prepare the most, but get outplayed or make a mistake during the tournament. Also, you could get an unfavorable matchup against an anti-meta build, and lose even if you have optimized the best meta build in existence. Thus, gearing someone up doesn't mean that they will automatically win the tournament.
This is a totally different debate, but honestly, when you are talking about the 1v1 arena for military node leadership (especially if it is a metropolis), you should just assume that there will be many highly skilled people involved.
Since these people will all be highly skilled, the only real advantage they are able to get over each other is the gear they are able to equip their proxies with - and so it still stands to reason that the player that spends the most time getting this gear will most likely be the winner.
A military node shouldn't require the same type of time investment that a scientific node requires. If it's going to come down to who has the largest, and most coordinated guild support in the ffa arena, they might as well just make it another popular vote.
The idea that everyone who wants to be the mayor of the military node is required to not only level, but spend massive amounts of time gearing up, and learning to master, the current meta on top of their preferred build in order to achieve this goal is absurd. That defeats the purpose of having all of this class customization if the mayor must be meta.
In a sense, you're correct that the gearing up of your champion aspect will be similar to the divine node. Big difference: you have to use him effectively. If the people who truly desire mayoral status spend the time maxing out their champions, then prove their martial superiority in the arena, sounds like intent has been met. Now I will say, I don't know the best method of combat (1v1, 3v3, ffa, etc.) that would help meet this intent.
How does the idea of time investment fall flat? I believe people should be able to max out these champions. That way the playing field is level. But, it should take considerable time investment to do so. No need to constantly make it more difficult. Just make it baseline difficult. On top of that, it shouldn't be a process of spending the standard currency (economic node); It should be a unique currency that is acquired via questing/ grinding/ playing the game. Ooh, maybe by implementing a monster bounty/ challenge system that requires you to defeat certain dungeon or raid bosses, or just world elites in order to obtain the currency.
There could easily be a process of rekitting out, or repairing the kit for the mayors champion that forces him to still invest time in keeping his mayoral status.
A tournament bracket that potentially holds hundreds of player would be almost impossible to arrange and schedule. Certainly it wouldn't work if it was 1v1, and you wanted every citizen to participate. It would take days, and half the people wouldn't be available at the scheduled time of their match...
If there is a live tournament at all, the pool of participants would need to be whittled down already so that the whole tournament could fit within prime-time (maybe over two days). A FFA with only the top 5-10% qualifying would work. Or you could use the existing arena ratings (if those are a thing?), and only allow the top rated players.
Personally, I think small arena teams with real characters would be more satisfying for participants, and possibly more entertaining for spectators. Doing 1v1s with the champion system would be lackluster unless the combat is as sharp as a fighting game (like Blade and Soul arenas). But I dunno if any of that is feasible, or if it's worth Intrepid's time.
I don't have enough insight to mention any other details. Y'all keep up the good work here. I'll be over in the DPS meter thread
Now, in the worst case of 1v1, we would only need a maximum of 12 rounds to determine a winner (2^11 = 2048).
Intrepid would need to set a match time limit, because people could maliciously stall out the mayoral process to infinity without it. If we limit each match to 15min, which should be plenty for 1v1, then it would take a total of 15min*12, or 3 hours to finish the entire tournament.
This is definitely doable in 1 day. Everyone would need to commit 3 hours + an extra hour for a small amount of wiggle room between each round, on one day of the month to determine the new mayor. This does not seem very hard to arrange or schedule.
Oh... For some reason I had it in my mind that it would be one match at a time. But I suppose the first several rounds could be simultaneous in separate instances.
Unless I’ve got the meaning of concurrent wrong.. 10k concurrent players would be 2k per metropolis and that’s being generous honestly. That is the math they used for their example.. I don’t see what your point is.. I’d be confident in saying 2k people running for a military nodes mayor would be extremely unlikely.
It would be fairly easy to limit the candidates. 15 minutes is a variable easily changed based on the candidates. You’d be able to slash the amount of required rounds with a group based arena. (There really isn’t a good way of 1v1 without that seemingly unpopular champion system)
I, personally, would prefer to have a unique experience for each node's mayoral election process.
My understanding is that these node types are meant to be vastly different. And so the mind sets of it's citizens, to include the type of leader they desire and the method used to prove the leader fulfills this desire, should be different.
And, while I'll admit that the idea I posted earlier regarding the method of obtaining champion upgrades is a redressing of the divine nodes time investment, there is a big difference in the why of it.
Divine nodes (assumption incoming) will require it's mayoral candidates to perform tasks that help it's citizens. This can be achieved through gathering quests, eliminating external threats to it's citizenry, etc.
Military nodes would require feats of strength in order to obtain champion upgrades, culminating into the ultimate feat of strength, that of greatest warrior amongst the populous.
I agree that the way you go about being the leader of a military node should be different to the way you go about being the leader of a divine node, but that isn't what you said, nor what I asked for clarification on.
You said it shouldn't take as much time to be the leader of a divine node as it would to be the leader of a military node, and that is a baseless statement as far as I am concerned. If being the mayor of each node type of the same level confers the same abilities to the player, then the time investment should be on par with each other.
Divine nodes are most likely going to simply require prospective mayors run what essentially amounts to repeatable faction quests, and the player that does the most will be the mayor.
If the military node is to be decided via proxies, then gearing those proxies to a state that makes it viable to win should take up roughly that same amount of time (minus the time spent in the arena itself).
I wasn't specific here. What followed was an example / semi-justifying my previous idea.
But for added clarity: I view the ffa arena, guild protecting it's candidate, style of combat to be a foggy mirror image of the scientific node's popular vote because the time investment is much more heavily centered around the social aspect of the guild.
I don't believe I did.
Plus, as you continued to state, the divine node doesn't seem to have a cap on how much time you invest. So, more than likely those divine node mayoral candidates will be putting significantly more time into the process.
I agree.
Economic node mayors can always spend more time making money, and more time making allies to assist them.
Scientific node mayors can always spend more time getting allies, and more time making coin in order to buy votes.
Divine node mayors can spend more time doing the quests, and more time making allies to assist them in doing those quests faster.
Military node mayors need this same time input. That is able to be provided for if players are in the arena, but if it is a proxy with a limited number of upgrades, there is no way at all to spend this same amount of time.
That's a good point.
This seems like the most reasonable, and equitable, method for the military node, then.
1v1 bracket style where there is an advantage to putting in the time to gear out your champion.
That being said, a highly skilled player with minimal time investment into their champion should still have a chance of beating a low skill player with heavy investment. I don't think gearing out your champion should be an auto win. Just, a way to improve your odds.
The other thing that would be key with this to me is that the proxy needs to reset after each month.
All other nodes do this - it is only fair that a military node have every aspect of it's mayoral race reset for each month. It is also the only way a new player would ever be able to have a shot.
This also drastically lowers the amount of content that would be needed to make this work. Rather than needing new content each month, it would essentially be the same content each time. As long as there is more content than players are likely to get through in a month, then all is well.
I agree with all of the above.
Good talk, and have a good day.
It is a viable mechanic, it is the fact that it is using proxies that I dont like.
It means that rather than your actual PvP ability being tested, it is your ability to use these champions that is being tested.
With the current system people will be given pretty much equal chances of being the mayor if they put the same effort.
U.S. East
But it isn't testing your ability to actually PvP with your class - or with any class.
It is basically dropping the actual game combat, adding a new type of combat with it's own gearing system and testing who is good at that. May as well make the mayoral test for military nodes a competition in Overwatch or Fortnite.
Well, keep in-mind that in the latest monthly Twitch stream update, the devs seemed opposed to the use of champions, even though they thought it was a neat idea. The "champions" we're talking about at this time are essentially either members of a player-organization willing to purposefully lose to someone like a guild leader, or individuals paid-off to lose their final matches to a specific person.
At the present time, this remains a "best-of" PvP competition - so it's still up to the individual to ensure that they themselves are as best-fitted for PvP as possible.