Rumors and news have been trickling through the grapevine over the past week or so with the upcoming changes to Conquest. We're ready now to officially announce the majority of the updates. The general undertone of all of these changes is that they address (sometimes fundamental) problems with the system, so each section will describe the change as well as talk about what problem it should be solving.
New TGen Structure
4 lamps instead of 5.
The Problem
Removing Towers, Adding Modules
Towers give people too much cancer
The Problems
Too much damage; too high barrier of entry
The Problems
A Minimum Requirement for Capital
Sitting idle can't win you Capital anymore
The Problem
Strength Decay
Lose strength over time if you have no Territory
The Problem
Third Parties
Cheesy tactics running rampant.
The Problem
Mercenary Stations
Participate in a fight as a third party; choose your side!
The Problem
That's the nutshell of it all. There is likely much more; we'll keep you posted.
Go Forth!
New TGen Structure
4 lamps instead of 5.
The Problem
- Unnecessary advantage toward the Defenders by having more lamps than attackers do. They get Towers already, so having an extra lamp seems unnecessary
- 1.9 PvP Combat is already slower, our fights don't need to be even longer than they already are. You saw in our past iteration of Inhibitors, that we changed from a 2-lamp inhib to 4 in order to better balance the system. Welp, let's go full balance and just make it 4 vs 4. Obviously there are still advantages to being the defender, geographically speaking, but at least there isn't a design-reason why defenders get more lamps than the attackers do.
- As a result of 4 lamps vs 5, taking out Lamps will no longer change the Core Fight. Now all 5 attacks will be there every time and the health of the core will remain the same.
Removing Towers, Adding Modules
Towers give people too much cancer
The Problems
- Towers don't add any meta to the game since you only can put 2 TnT, 1 Buff, 1 Weakness down and that's what everybody has.
- Above all else, Towers just make fights take too long. Fights should be long because they're relatively equal, not because towers make life hell.
- Floating towers, caging towers, pillar towers; it's all dumb, frankly and it's too hard for us to say what's kosher or not.
- We're removing Towers as a concept of standalone placeable structures with their own Power Sources. Instead, we're converting them into what we're calling TGen Modules. In short, the functionality of Towers has been moved to an addon that you can install directly on a TGen and whose lifeline is tied to its own Power Source. Take out the Power Source, deactivate the Module (Tower), move on with your life. TGens fights now just have 4 power sources to deal with, not potentially nine.
- We're adding 3 new Tower Types:
- Laser Module - Range: 25 blocks - This (if you play League, it's one of those) module fires a laser at a single player constantly, doing increasing damage over time until the player leaves the mod's range or dies.
- Slow Module - Range: 25 blocks - Similar to the above Laser Mod, this fires a slowing beam at a player, applying Slow II on them until they leave range.
- Spectral Module - Range: 75 blocks - Similar to the Weakness Tower, all nearby foreign players will be tagged by the Spectral Module and will glow until they leave. This does not apply to defenders of the TGen and as such is useful for distinguishing friend from foe, as the glow colors respect /g align (enemies will glow red, allies blue, neutral yellow, etc)
- Overall we feel these new towers add a possible meta, especially if you live in a Jungle vs an open Plains, the option of TnT vs a Laser Module may make a big difference in the efficiency of the modules.
- This also gets rid of all the crazy, albeit innovative solutions people have been coming up with to reinforce or gimp Towers. The entirety of the TGen fight is now one building and a battle that is hopefully overall much shorter.
Too much damage; too high barrier of entry
The Problems
- Golems are 2stronk. They do more damage and now that they don't take knockback, they're even harder. Effectively, Golems are bosses now, and we spawn 4 of them on you! We even reduced their damage by 30% for 1.9 and it's still not enough.
- Even attempting a fight without at least Prot III Diamond Armor is suicidal, even if there is no opposition. It's one thing getting a set of Diamond Armor together, but then getting full enchants on it is even more work. People need to get into Conquest fights sooner.
- Conquest damage in the form of Golem Attacks, Laser and TnT Mod attacks are now all calculated as True Damage. Specifically, True Damage is not mitigated by anything other than your base armor. In layman's terms, your enchants don't matter here and a player with unenchanted diamond armor will take as much damage as one with full Prot IV.
- That said, just because you can now go to fights with unenchanted diamond armor, damage from Players and everything else is the same, so if you're outgeared by players, you'll be defeated all the same.
A Minimum Requirement for Capital
Sitting idle can't win you Capital anymore
The Problem
- Currently, a town could win one fight on their continent on the first day of the month and earn capital for their continent if no other town participated. Well, that's dumb.
- Your lead on your continent is really unaffected by other continents. You might get annihilated by other continents, but if you have no other contenders, you still get capital and you still get to pick policies at the end of the month.
- A minimum number of Strength will be required to win Capital. This number is currently floating around ~900, but is subject to change as we do more math.
- You could get your 10 wins and sit on your laurels or even leave for a couple weeks, but now opposing forces have the ability to attempt to knock you below that minimum requirement so that you can't get capital and potentially embargo a valuable resource.
- We want Conquest to happen all the time, but realistically that's not quite possible. People have lives, people have to farm for their gear and war is costly. With the system we have now, though, we allow for the opposite, which is an extremely light-month of battles and everybody still gets capital but potentially nobody's done all 10 wins or even done much more than a few fights. Earn it!
Strength Decay
Lose strength over time if you have no Territory
The Problem
- Along the same vein as above, a town could earn a high number of points and then delete their TGens entirely or be wiped out by an opponent. Now they're immune to attacks and they keep their points. Travesty!
- At the moment you lose your final TGen or delete it, you will lose a sizable chunk of your Strength proportional to your value over the minimum cap of 900. So long as you continue to have no TGens active, your strength will reduce constantly until it reaches some number (dunno what it is yet nor how quickly). Fight for your last TGen!
Third Parties
Cheesy tactics running rampant.
The Problem
- Towns who are neither the attacker nor the defender can pull some goofy stunts and murder Golems for a variety of reason (gain charges, prevent the other town from killing them, etc).
- Only attackers can attack opposing golems and vice versa. A town that's not involved can still show up to kill players but cannot participate in killing the golems.
- Of course some towns do want to legitimately help other towns in a fight, so read the next section!
Mercenary Stations
Participate in a fight as a third party; choose your side!
The Problem
- Towns want to help in fights they're not directly a part of. This is easily understandable, but the mechanics and balance of this system are tough.
- This system is still under heavy debate but the idea is the following:
- You can show up to a Battle Zone where an Inhibitor is placed and place a Mercerary Station for your town. This allows you to choose a side to fight for (so long as that town agrees to have your help). Once you choose a side, you can now attack opposing golems and warp in much like an Inhibitor.
- These will be much more limited compared to an Inhibitor and will likely allow for few reinforcements, increasingly costly return trips, and probably one, at most two lamps so that defenders can take them out easily if they so choose.
- We'll keep you guys posted on how this system works.
That's the nutshell of it all. There is likely much more; we'll keep you posted.
Go Forth!
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