Bloodwinter Clan

So, I've been playing a ton on Pendragon for the past 3 weeks trying to get a feel for what NF is going to do for RvR. First off, I want to say that if your an emain rat, your world is gone plain and simple. There is no area in NF that is even close to Emain. Mythic has taken the fight to center around keeps, and thats pretty much it. That may sound bad, but the way it has been implimented will make most people happy.

Keeps -

Keeps are now worth taking. You get a bonus for every keep over 8 that your side owns plus DF access. These bonuses range from more RP's, to more xp, to more coin, to 5% crit rate increase (if you own every keep in the game). Keeps consist of two sections, and outer keep and an inner keep. The outer keep is the outside walls of the keep, the ramparts, and where most of the keep siege defenses are available. The walls of the outer keep can be attacked and certain sections of the wall can be destroyed to allow a secondary means of entry to the keep. Destroying a section of the keep that will not create a hole makes it so defenders cannot build siege or place guards on that section. Keeps essentally have no guards to speak off. Other than the FG of guards that patrol the keep (this group consists of usually 4 fighter guards, one healer guard, and one archer guard) player must buy keep guards with GP, BP, or GBP. You have your choice of Melee guards, healer guards (that will heal other guards as well as PC defenders), Archer guards, Stealther guards, and Mage guards. Each guard allows the purchaser to give them orders as to what to do. Melee's can be set for 1hd or 2hd weapons and either offensive or defensive and always roam. Healer Guards are stationary and you set the heal level and frequency. Archers you set their range. Stealther guards detect any stealther that enters the keep automatically and you can set their offense or evasion, and weather they stay put or roam. Mage guards can be set for damage, CC, or DoT. Keep level determines the health of the walls, the level of the guards, how many hookpoints are avail, and where the lord of the keep resides. Stage 1 keeps the guards are blue-oj and the lord is on the first floor of the inner keep. Stage 2 keeps the guards are yellow-red and lord is on the second floor of the inner keep. Stage 3 keeps the guards are oj-grape and the lord is on the 4th floor. The courtyard area and the surrounding area outside the outer keep is wide open, with little obstruction. This pretty much makes any battles outside the keep and in the cy Open Field situations.

Towers -
Each keep has 4 towers that are linked to it. To be able to teleport to a keep, you need to own the keep and the two towers closest to the keep. These towers in question are the only towers where an enemy can launch siege at the keep. Towers can be claimed and upgraded as well, with the same effects as a Keep. Towers can only have two siege weapons on it, and one is always boiling oil. Landscape around the Towers is the same as around the keeps. Open towers (towers that are not in siege range of the keep its attached to) usually have some type of environment around it to entice different attack and defense points. Taking a tower is the closest thing to what its like taking a keep in the current live system.

Relics -
Relic keeps are now pretty much wide open shrines with snazzy effects. there are no walls, there are no doors, and there are no guards. The relics sit up on high columns and are unreachable. As you take down keeps in the realm, the towers will slowly lower allowing someone to walk up and snag the relic. The only defense point of a relic keep are the Relic Gates. Two 5 story high walls are the enemys only access to the Relic shrine, and the defenders last line of defense. Looking similar to the a scene in the opening of the Muppet Show, these gates are full of arches that defenders can use to launch attacks, while the attackers have to break down the gated door on the ground level. Once these gates are down, its a wide open run to the shrine, which is (of course) in a giant open field. See the pattern here?

Player Roles -
Range rules the game now. Period. If you don't have some type of ranged damage, expect to be fodder or siege bitch. Since NF centers around keep taking and defense, most of the action will be around keeps. Tanks can pretty much do nothing cept run siege or pick off any incoming defenders. It will be hard for a tank to find a new role in the beginning, but I have found that running that pot of boiling oil during defense, and playing whack-a-mole with brave archers is pretty fun. Archers also seem to have gotten a damage boost somewhat. With the new RA system, they can now crit on regular shots higher than they ever could with the Crit Shot ability.

RA System -
The new RA system for the most part is a good thing. More of the good skills that were class specific before are open to all, and the overpowered ones taken out (cept for Vanish, which is now crazy). With the removal of MoArcane and the availability of more critical rate up skills, defense is more important. AoM is now a must for everyone. IP is pretty much usless unless your high RR and willing to blow the points. Lvl 1 purge is really the only purge you'll need, but lvl 2 purge is good if you got the points. Most of the RR5 class abilities that you get for free are useless, but what would you expect for a free RA?

I will be posting Screen Shots soon of the new keeps, relic keeps, relic gates, and towers. I also have some nice caps of some keep defenses. I'd appreciate some feed back.

Great Writeup

Great post, freaking uber..

Sounds like fun.

Super to grow up and actually play the game he talks shit about.

Great write up Nese ~

I do belive some keeps you can hit from 3 diffrnent places.

from the ocean, from the shore and from the side.

Another cool thing to do with a tower or keep under attack is hope on a siege boat have 2 guys lay siege to the area b eing attacked while everyoen else jumps off boat swims to land and bumbrushes inside a tower or keep under attack.

All in all its fun.

And using siege or "Field" siege is fun every tank with a diminutive siege apparatus and your set. its fun using the ICE balls or greek fire on shit.

GREAT WRITE UP! Thanks for taking the time, bro.

Question:

Is this going to be the end of small guilds? Sounds like BPs are going to be VERY important.

Do they boost the amount of BPs you get from a kill?

Was on last night.

You weren't as usual.

Very Informative. thx!

Everytime I think of Frontieers I think of Planetside for some reason. Didn't they say you will be able to teleport to a on going keep seige or something?

Bobyearl wrote:GREAT WRITE UP! Thanks for taking the time, bro.

Question:

Is this going to be the end of small guilds? Sounds like BPs are going to be VERY important.

Do they boost the amount of BPs you get from a kill?

I should have mentioned this in the write up, but I forgot to!

You now get RP's much faster and more often. Players who have been killed recently are now worth 25% of their total RP's instead of none and are worth some BPs. You also gain RP's for successfully defending/taking a keep. The amount of RP's you gain is based on the length of the siege, number of towers owned for that particular keep, level of keep, and number of defenders. Since the Pendragon population is pretty light, the most I've gotten for defending a keep has been 500 RPs and 1300RP for taking a keep. These RP rewards do not include BP's.

So yes, BP's will be important, but if your a small guild with ass loads of cash, you can still set up a nice keep, you just won't be able to upgrade.

As far as Ting's question, yes you can teleport into a keep that is under attack, so long as you own enough towers. As of 1.70Y on Pend, you now need all 4 towers to be able to teleport to a keep. Before you only needed the two closest. I have a feeling this is because it was almost impossible to stop the constant flood of defenders into the keep you were attacking. This now means that ninja ganking a tower will greatly increase the over all response time of the defending realm. Something to think about.....

There are also some keep bugs that need to be fixed. On a stage three keep (lvl 8 - 10) the outer keep walls have three levels, with the third level being much higher than the balcony on the inner keep. Guess what that means...... you can jump from the top corner of a stage 3 Mid keep into the inner keep. A necro did it the other day during a siege on blendrake, and posts about it on VN. Also, when a keep has taken enough damage to cause cracks in the walls, but not full blown holes for entry, there are sections of the wall just big enough to jump out of..... or into. I was told that it was by design that you can jump out of these holes, but attackers are not supposed to be able to enter that way. Well I have seen necros/stealthers lag trick their way in.

There are bugs with certain RA's as well, specifically Selective Blindness. When a mentalist casts this on you, you cannot attack him. One bug is that if leaves you in combat and unable to do damage until you take damage. This "might be" fixed in 1.70Y. Also, in certain situations, this RA never wears off.

Any other questions, let me know.

Nese is my hero

Have relics changed hands much? Do you think they will on live servers from your observations of the rvr trends on Pend so far?

kordaer wrote:Have relics changed hands much? Do you think they will on live servers from your observations of the rvr trends on Pend so far?

Once I get off my ass and actually get the screen caps posted, you'll see that taking a relic on a live server will be much harder than it is on pendragon. On Pend, the average "zerg v zerg" battle consists of 2fg v 2fg. This makes it so that its fairly easy to sneak past the Relic Gates and snag a relic while the defending realm wastes time taking back keeps. I personally don't think relics will change hands as much as they do now due to the amount of manpower and time involved. You can no longer siege a relic at whim, you need to own 6 of the 8 enemy keeps before the relics are reachable. You then need to defend those keeps while you send a force to get past the relic gate, because if you lose a keep after you get the through the gate the relic pillars will rise and your force is hosed.

As far as the trends on pendragon.... we can't really judge how a large scale encounter will play out, especially when it comes to relics. What pendragon does well is balance small battles. Its too bad that more people don't play on pend. The RvR population there currently is 50% mids / 25% albs / 25% hibs because people log in, see that mids have all 6 relics, and log off without even giving it a chance. So go download the new installer and come play. I caught Ema and Elmo on there the other day dropping albs like they were going out of style.