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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Idea: Military leadership, Alternative to Champions.
Acarith
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
After hearing about the balance dilemma in regards to alternating leadership of military nodes away from the stronger classes, I came up with an idea. Rather than have players grind hours investing into a champion with very limited use, I suggest to have players fight rounds with their opponents character/loadout.
In any mmo leaders and pvper’s need to be able to recognize the abilities and playstyles of their allies and opponents. Sometimes new players will ask for help, and I’ve found in other mmos that it helps to have played their character. This form of competition ensures that military nodes are ruled by the best adaptable and knowledgeable players in combat. Promoting that they have the background to form a strategized raid composition, based on their knowledge of competition.
In a 1v1 tournament, players aim to win two rounds in a row. There’s a phase at the beginning of the second round to become familiar with your opponent's character. Players must use their opponents slotted abilities, but have time to reposition them. If reached, the 5th round is a tiebreaker round, and the character with the most wins is used by both players.
In a battle royale players spawn with a random opponent's character. Every two assists, or after a kill they swap to a surviving character load out. The final 3 contestants switch back to their characters loadout. This ensures that the strongest and most talented players become mayor. A bad draw may force well built players to overcome unforeseen circumstances. If their class is over performing they could die early and be eliminated if they don’t play well. Maybe someone will sort out a vendetta early on. Or we’ll watch the whole town stage a coup.
This idea can also work with pre-made builds.
In any mmo leaders and pvper’s need to be able to recognize the abilities and playstyles of their allies and opponents. Sometimes new players will ask for help, and I’ve found in other mmos that it helps to have played their character. This form of competition ensures that military nodes are ruled by the best adaptable and knowledgeable players in combat. Promoting that they have the background to form a strategized raid composition, based on their knowledge of competition.
In a 1v1 tournament, players aim to win two rounds in a row. There’s a phase at the beginning of the second round to become familiar with your opponent's character. Players must use their opponents slotted abilities, but have time to reposition them. If reached, the 5th round is a tiebreaker round, and the character with the most wins is used by both players.
In a battle royale players spawn with a random opponent's character. Every two assists, or after a kill they swap to a surviving character load out. The final 3 contestants switch back to their characters loadout. This ensures that the strongest and most talented players become mayor. A bad draw may force well built players to overcome unforeseen circumstances. If their class is over performing they could die early and be eliminated if they don’t play well. Maybe someone will sort out a vendetta early on. Or we’ll watch the whole town stage a coup.
This idea can also work with pre-made builds.
A guy who came from ESO.
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Comments
Military leadership can be a contest between tanks, rogues, fighters, archers, mages and summoner wearing the strongest gear they can get their hands on.
Maybe a military node doesnt need to have a cleric leader or a bard.
I am of the opinion that it should be the second of these.
What do you all think about the way military node is decide has a racial bias to what method is used? E.g. Dwarves and orcs lean to 1v1 humans and elves 3v3
I too am leaning in this direction, but not in full. If the most potent player becomes mayor, than the node has a warrior that can be relied on to win and build a consistent vision for the node. In battle they'll be a name to respect, however, the top character in a 1v1 or even in a battle royal may not be that player in battle. Some melee classes for instance may over preform with a limited number of attackers, but in an open field be at a disadvantage. Meanwhile a tank, may survive the slaughter in a battle royal, to be nothing more than a sustain nuisance in a 1v1. If I'm a mage and I kill half the players before I'm focused, do I not get to be mayor?
If kills counted as votes, it would be a better playing field.
If you're suggesting to add diversity to the competitions based on the racial style the node takes after then I think that's a good idea.
The reason a FFA would work is because rather than actually being every player for themselves, guilds and alliances will work towards getting a designated player to win. This system also has the advantage of allowing some subterfuge, and of getting more players involved (it gives players without any desire to be the mayor a reason to participate, to help their preferred candidate win).
I agree that any system that relies on 1v1 combat is a bad system, but a FFA system would not rely on 1v1.
Having single elimination tournaments for 1vs1 is a terrible idea, and some classes will always beat certain others.
My idea is instead have a battle royale, but with no champion customization. Just all the same blank characters. Same life points, same mana pool etc. Only choice is in the weapons. And let the skills dictate the rest.
That type of meritocratic militar brutality would much better represent the best player in the node. Rather than the one who got luckier in drops from bosses in dungeons and raids.
The downside of this is that it means you are taking who is mayor of a military node out of the characters perspective.
If I happen to be amazing at PvP, I could have an alt account, have a single low level character, become a citizen of a military node, and only log in once a month in order to participate in the tournament.
True, although ultimately there is nothing wrong with that either. So long as you set the right taxes and are ready for the consequences of your actions as mayor (in the event you win), then go for it.
While character and RP and reputation would be cool to keep in mind, it's also not a mandatory requirement.
There will always be months where some random who isn't the best PvPer in the area will win by happenstance. Should he have any less chances to win, because he wasn't already in the top 50 PvPers on server?
Honestly, if I set the taxes to max, don't build any buildings, don't repair anything after a monster coin event, don't set any mayoral quests and don't deal with node defense spending in the event of a siege, if I came back and won the competition a second time, very few people would hang around in that node.
The other three nodes all have a means by which they can subvert a players attempt to be mayor. They can negotiate with guilds to secure votes for scientific nodes, they can attack caravans that are supplying an economic node mayor with the funds they need to buy their position, and they can attack, harry and harass a player trying to complete the quests for a religious node.
Your suggestion leaves no such avenue for a military node, with the only thing people can do being to best the mayor in 1v1 combat in a style that is only applicable to that mayoral competition, and not present or relevant in the rest of the game.
I am surprised I even need to go in to detail as to why this is a bad idea.
You're assuming that these issues are out of the realm of possibility with someone who would invest the time to gear up their champion.
I could spend months gearing the guy up and win the mayorship, and then proceed to set taxes to max and not build anything and not log out for a full month, get rich and then disappear.
Having the playing field be level and dependent on skill... on a martial node... I don't see the issue with that.
Also, let me be clear again. I do not advocate for 1vs1 matches. Only battle royale free for all style.
If someone is gearing up their champion, it is likely they will need to either start again each month, or have to continue to gear up each month.
This puts the military node in the same place as the other nodes in that people have the ability to interrupt the preparation of the person they want to remove from office.
If someone is able to do this and still win the competition, that is no different to someone still being able to do all the religious node quests in order to purposefully mismanage that node.
The thing with a FFA style fight as well is that your class becomes irrelevant - as you are now talking about guild/alliance vs guild/alliance in a setting where guilds and alliances are set up specifically for PvP. If Intrepid opt for a FFA style tournament, there is no point in developing champions.
Class becoming irrelevant is probably for the best. As we know, Intrepid aren't entirely balancing classes. If classes are indeed a thing in the FFA battle, then odds are, every month only a certain class will win as it is superior to the rest. And needing to play a (for example) Soulbow only if you want to get that mayorship defeats the purpose of having this kind of election system. Might as well just make it a coin toss between all citizen Soulbows of that node.
If it is an FFA tournament, the winner will be what ever character the winning group decide it will be.
An FFA tournament won't be every player for themselves, it will be every guild/alliance for who ever it is they decided they want to be mayor. This is why class will be irrelevant in a FFA competition - your class doesn't matter if you have 50 people fighting for you.
Which is why it is a stupid system.
It is a fight using an irrelevant system, to determine who is best at using that system and that system only.
The whole thing should be using the regular combat system, with the regular class structure, and regular gear progression.
Again, the issue with that is that let's say everyone has their best possible gear: specific classes will always win. So winning this election would come down to who picked the right archetype and augment class, rather than actual skill in PvP
And again you are not listening.
1v1 in any form is the wrong idea. Either groups of any set size (even allow the mayor to set the size between 3 and 8), or an outright FFA, which will result in who ever has the best organization winning.
That said, even if it were 1v1, so what? Sure, the classes that are best at PvP will win, but the entire point of a military node is PvP, so that is 100% fitting.
Why would you be living in a military node if not for PvP, and if you are keen on PvP, you will be a strong PvP class.
So, explain to me why this is an issue again...
So let's say you picked the "right class" you're all happy and everything is great, you win your mayorship whether it'd be a battle royale or a 1v1 (which, again, I AM NOT ADVOCATING FOR!).
What happens when the next patch they nerf your class? Are you gonna be all happy about it because "cool it's someone else's turn to always win" ?
That's just utterly and completely moronic.
What is more fair and representative of your actual skill, than an equal playing field for all? Just because you wanna min max, it doesn't mean it'll be fair for you either. Because you're gonna invest all the time in playing the "right class combination" (as you've alluded across multiple threads that those are the only people you'd also wanna associate with) and then get shafted when some other class just happens to absolutely wreck you even with incomparable PvP gear.
It's rock/paper/scissors.
Which one of those is trump?
Oh no, I wont be as effective in sieges.
Oh no, I wont be as effective in guild wars.
Oh no, I wont be as effective in node wars.
Oh no, I wont be as effective with caravans.
Oh no, I wont be as effective in open PvP.
Oh no, I wont be as effective during the mayoral contest.
Before we look at adding in a bullshit system to cover literally the last thing to be worried about, we should look to address what we will do in the situations with higher priority.