Considering that the game that we have now pretty much revolves around RvR

[bapkim]

Considering that the game that we have now pretty much revolves around RvR, and devs have made statements previously to the effect that they want to force (push) every player into RvR-involvement (cf. discarded land ownership idea, resource wars etc), I feel like remarkably little has been said on the matter of RvR in connection with this particular much anticipated wipe and patch.

 

How does RvR fit into the new direction of the game?

Will Conquest even remain? Or are Port Battles-being relatively fair battles normally-about to be phased out and put into the coming Arena game instead as they don't fit the current direction?

Will hostility generation remain, even though missions and PvE are getting cut, making it on testbed practically impossible to generate port battles in some areas? Or will we get a new flag-system or other system where we spend gold and/or Marks to create port battles?

Is the goal for port battles, which is the content that many of us primarily log in to take part in, to still be a daily occurrence, or will it be a lot rarer, requiring us to grind for a long time between each Port battle to set up the next one?

 

In most other aspects of the game, devs are saying that balance, easy access and fairness are no longer priorities. The world is a harsh place, the open ocean was doubly so. But for RvR to be viable, some semblance of balance needs to be maintained. Sailing and the partial removal of teleports actually promotes this balance. By making it harder to concentrate forces, and making defence an effort more equal to attack. As long as no-one holds to the illusion that territories should ever be equally sized for small nations as for large.

However, the removal of compensation for losses and the increased effort to build ships threatens this balance. If one nation builds a strong fleet, and is able to sink part of the other nation’s fleet in a Port Battle with minor losses themselves. The defeated nation will get no compensation or marks that they can use to rebuild their fleet or regain their loss, and the next day the first nation can attack again before the enemy can grind to replace their ships. A lot of territory could change hands before the defenders are able to rebuild their fleet. How will this be sorted and balanced to prevent nations from being stomped at and kept from ever rebuilding? 

With resource production being all player-driven, and territories being key to production access, the efforts and results of RvR-players will have very considerable impact on the gameplay and competitiveness of non-RvR PvP-players, crafters, traders and PvE-ers alike. This could force more and more players to switch to the larger nations with more possibilities, or give up and stop playing altogether. How will the number of nations we have in-game today be maintained and kept viable?

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Thank you Rediii.

Continue discussion on the linked thread.