The idea is to implement a massive level 60 zone where the Horde and Alliance battle over objectives. Similar to Alterac Valley, only it would not be instanced, but rather an open world battleground. Sort of a mix of open world + battlegrounds. Anyone could enter during the battle. Instead of the constant ganking of level 50 players in leveling zones, what if there was a zone bigger than the Barrens where level 60s could fight without chokepoints.
The Alliance and Horde would each have bases at the entrance of the Frontiers. From there they would roam the zone looking for objectives to complete and enemies to kill. Smallgroup and solo play would be incentivized, similar to how it is in Arena. Players would be encouraged to roam in small groups, but there would be large scale objectives for large groups as well. There would be more diminishing returns for each additional player in a group. Roaming as a zerg would be discouraged, and unlike Alterac Valley, players would be rewarded substantially for killing enemies and completing minor objectives.
The objectives in the Frontier would be varied and spread out. Capture points, collection tasks, treasure chests etc.. Players would be rewarded with contribution points for completing objectives. These contribution points would be converted to honor at the end of a Frontier Battle. The more an individual player contributes, the more honor they would receive. The Frontier would heavily reward players on an individual level. The intention is to limit and mitigate zerging. Once one realm earns enough Frontier Score the battle ends and a new one begins. Each player is then awarded honor based on their contribution.
The idea is to implement a massive level 60 zone where the Horde and Alliance battle over objectives.
So no balance? Star wars the old republic did this and it killed the game. This magnifies faction imbalance and incentivizes players to roll on overpopulated factions for easy wins. Because this is open world, and is a PvE mode that rewards PvP honor, the entire system is inevitably going to be bad. You dont need the other faction to be competitive or to have people attend the BG to get rewarded. Players will swarm and rip the BG apart like locusts on one faction and the other faction wont attend.
This idea seems similar... No. Exactly the same as your geyser idea, youve just changed the location. I see you've also done a throwback adding in "treasure chests". Another of your ideas... haha.
The idea is to implement a massive level 60 zone where the Horde and Alliance battle over objectives.
So no balance? Star wars the old republic did this and it killed the game. This magnifies faction imbalance and incentivizes players to roll on overpopulated factions for easy wins. Because this is open world, and is a PvE mode that rewards PvP honor, the entire system is inevitably going to be bad. You dont need the other faction to be competitive or to have people attend the BG to get rewarded. Players will swarm and rip the BG apart like locusts on one faction and the other faction wont attend.
Faction imbalance is a concern, just as it is on any PvP server. The biggest downfall of these PvP systems is the zerging or large group domination. You need objectives that are spread out to split the playerbase. Frontiers would reward bonus contribution points for less populated factions. The maps would not have chokepoints or funnels. Playing solo would potentially be the most efficient playstyle. Zerging in general would be penalized, but there would be a large scale battle objective. The Frontier would offer a more dynamic World PvP setting.
What happened in SWTOR?
Faction imbalance is a concern, just as it is on any PvP server.
No. Not a concern. A definite variable that single-handedly invalidates this idea. Give me faction balance and I am all ears. Without faction balance, the idea never gets implemented, and if it does, it wouldnt be compelling gameplay.
The biggest downfall of these PvP systems is the zerging or large group domination.
Which killed SWTOR. No skill required. No coordination required. Players are incentivized to roll on imbalanced realms and to zerg.
You need objectives that are spread out to split the playerbase.
Which furthers the neccessity of zerging. Instead of a coordinated group that is underpopulated being able to overcome odds with good communication and gear, those same players now MUST spread out, are thus thinned out, and the overpopulated faction wins each and every time.
The Frontier would offer a more dynamic World PvP setting.
No it wouldnt. It would be predictable and stagnant. The overpopulated faction would win each and every time.
edit: the low pop faction stops attending, and the overpopulated faction is locked into grinding all of their PvP honor in a PvE setting. Youve now ruined the PvP aspect of the game.
This seems like a bad idea. Having an instanced battleground means the match won't start unless there is an equal number of players on each side. If it's outside and things are awarded for whatever objective, you're just going to end up with whatever faction has more players taking it every single time.
Faction imbalance is a concern, just as it is on any PvP server.
No. Not a concern. A definite variable that single-handedly invalidates this idea. Give me faction balance and I am all ears. Without faction balance, the idea never gets implemented, and if it does, it wouldnt be compelling gameplay.
The biggest downfall of these PvP systems is the zerging or large group domination.
Which killed SWTOR. No skill required. No coordination required. Players are incentivized to roll on imbalanced realms and to zerg.
You need objectives that are spread out to split the playerbase.
Which furthers the neccessity of zerging. Instead of a coordinated group that is underpopulated being able to overcome odds with good communication and gear, those same players now MUST spread out, are thus thinned out, and the overpopulated faction wins each and every time.
The Frontier would offer a more dynamic World PvP setting.
No it wouldnt. It would be predictable and stagnant. The overpopulated faction would win each and every time.
I totally get why these system fail in other games. Faction imbalance and zerging. The entire focus is to reward solo/small scale PvP. Even the objectives would be designed around that. Zerging would give little to no honor, and have even greater diminishing returns. Underpopulated factions would earn bonus contribution. Imagine you have 2x as many Horde as Alliance in a Frontier. The Alliance earn double the contribution points, and the Horde would also likely have more bad players. Small group and solo roaming would be the optimal way to earn honor. There would be a lack of chokepoints, and players would be just as concerned with their individual honor gains as with winning the battle.
The Frontier is a zone where players could enter for an allotted amount of time and earn Honor. Think of the issues with Old Alterac Valley. Too much Mob PvE, too little reward for objectives and kills, and too many chokepoints. It was only worthwhile if you were present for Faction Boss Kills. Frontiers would be totally different.
The entire focus is to reward solo/small scale PvP. Even the objectives would be designed around that.
Your intent is irrelevant. Players will play. Players will zerg.
Zerging would give little to no honor, and have even greater diminishing returns.
Whatever steps you take to try and correct this glaring issue, the players will find a work around. You will either nerf this to the point that BG's offer more honor per hour and players wont participate, or this will be valuable and players will zerg.
Underpopulated factions would earn bonus contribution. Imagine you have 2x as many Horde as Alliance in a Frontier.
Sick. What multiplier will you give the lower populated faction? x2? x5? x250? Lets give them x1000 honor gain? Sounds crazy right... Check this out:
1000(their multiplier)x0(honor gained)=0
The Alliance earn double the contribution points, and the Horde would also likely have more bad players. Small group and solo roaming would be the optimal way to earn honor. There would be a lack of chokepoints, and players would be just as concerned with their individual honor gains as with winning the battle.
Ughhh... The old horde vs alliance debacle... They are the same playerbase. Most of us play both factions. Most of us also choose the path of least resistance. You will find most of your competent players on the overpopulated side, gearing quicker and thus, this makes the strong stronger.
The entire focus is to reward solo/small scale PvP. Even the objectives would be designed around that.
Your intent is irrelevant. Players will play. Players will zerg.
Zerging would give little to no honor, and have even greater diminishing returns.
Whatever steps you take to try and correct this glaring issue, the players will find a work around. You will either nerf this to the point that BG's offer more honor per hour and players wont participate, or this will be valuable and players will zerg.
Underpopulated factions would earn bonus contribution. Imagine you have 2x as many Horde as Alliance in a Frontier.
Sick. What multiplier will you give the lower populated faction? x2? x5? x250? Lets give them x1000 honor gain? Sounds crazy right... Check this out:
1000(their multiplier)x0(honor gained)=0
The Alliance earn double the contribution points, and the Horde would also likely have more bad players. Small group and solo roaming would be the optimal way to earn honor. There would be a lack of chokepoints, and players would be just as concerned with their individual honor gains as with winning the battle.
Ughhh... The old horde vs alliance debacle... They are the same playerbases genius. Most of us play both factions. Most of us also choose the path of least resistance. You will find most of your competent players on the overpopulated side, gearing quicker and thus, this makes the strong stronger.
None of these MMOs like The Old Republic or Dark Age of Camelot were designed around solo PvP. It was actually the opposite. The Frontiers in WoW would be designed for playing solo primarily. The objectives would reflect that. I understand the Zerg mentality as well as anyone, but it can be mitigated through map design, objectives, and diminishing returns. There will always be zergers, and having a Keep Fight for them could work. Instead of roaming as a Zerg mowing down solo players, they could fight over large scale objectives and earn honor.
You have drops that can only be looted or collected by one player. You have capture points spread out everywhere. You further diminish the honor gains for additional party members. You diminish the honor gain from adding in fights.
Another thought - world PvE works because the PvE encounters are predetermined. A certain amount of mobs spawn, you can party up, but get no quest rewards from sending raid groups at quests. Blizzard roughly balances outdoor PvE content in this way.
Instances work because the number of players and the number of mobs are also pre-determined. It has a certain balance baked into it. Not much you can do to overpower the balance of the instance, other than out-leveling and out-gearing the content. But by the time you do that, you've also out-geared and out-leveled the rewards. Blizzard roughly balances instanced dungeons in this way.
Raids work because again the number of players and the number and health of the mobs and bosses are pre-determined. Everything is scaled to ~40 players of a certain rough gear level, and the encounters operate within a certain prescribed difficulty band. Blizzard roughly balances raid content in this way.
Random outdoor PvP has no control over faction balance, nor does it have any control over how many people are attacking each other. But there is a built-in diminishing returns for killing the same person over and over again (I think... don't remember, been too long). It's fun, but very minimally rewarded so there is no real worry about abuse. Blizzard roughly balances random world PvP encounters this way, or at least keeps it from being abused.
Structured outdoor PvP content can't be balanced because the game has no control over how many people are playing on each side. Yeah, battlegrounds also suffer from poor 'balance' because the battleground has no control over what types of players queue up, or what classes queue up, but at least the numbers of players on each side is roughly the same. And this is at least an acceptable baseline that lets battlegrounds work. There is no such control over random outdoor PVP encounters. Whatever faction has more players will just win the objective every time. And if the objective is even worth doing, then it is impactful, and it would draw more players to that side and just make the situation worse. By the very nature of being outdoors and non-instanced, faction balance is impossible and the idea is broken.
I'm not even against new content in general a long time post-launch... but no interest in retarded new features being added to the game. I can't see this kind of feature ending well no matter what is thrown at it. It's broken by design...
Another thought - world PvE works because the PvE encounters are predetermined. A certain amount of mobs spawn, you can party up, but get no quest rewards from sending raid groups at quests. Blizzard roughly balances outdoor PvE content in this way.
Instances work because the number of players and the number of mobs are also pre-determined. It has a certain balance baked into it. Not much you can do to overpower the balance of the instance, other than out-leveling and out-gearing the content. But by the time you do that, you've also out-geared and out-leveled the rewards. Blizzard roughly balances instanced dungeons in this way.
Raids work because again the number of players and the number and health of the mobs and bosses are pre-determined. Everything is scaled to ~40 players of a certain rough gear level, and the encounters operate within a certain prescribed difficulty band. Blizzard roughly balances raid content in this way.
Random outdoor PvP has no control over faction balance, nor does it have any control over how many people are attacking each other. But there is a built-in diminishing returns for killing the same person over and over again (I think... don't remember, been too long). It's fun, but very minimally rewarded so there is no real worry about abuse. Blizzard roughly balances random world PvP encounters this way, or at least keeps it from being abused.
Structured outdoor PvP content can't be balanced because the game has no control over how many people are playing on each side. Yeah, battlegrounds also suffer from poor 'balance' because the battleground has no control over what types of players queue up, or what classes queue up, but at least the numbers of players on each side is roughly the same. And this is at least an acceptable baseline that lets battlegrounds work. There is no such control over random outdoor PVP encounters. Whatever faction has more players will just win the objective every time. And if the objective is even worth doing, then it is impactful, and it would draw more players to that side and just make the situation worse. By the very nature of being outdoors and non-instanced, faction balance is impossible and the idea is broken.
I'm not even against new content in general a long time post-launch... but no interest in retarded new features being added to the game. I can't see this kind of feature ending well no matter what is thrown at it. It's broken by design...
You are viewing the objectives as a win condition involving flag capture or keep takes. In such scenarios the large faction will dominate, especially considering the lack of AE abilities in WoW. However, the purpose of the Frontiers isn't just for your faction to win the battle, but for individual players to earn honor. That is what players care about more than anything. Even if the overpopulated faction won a Frontier Battle, the less populated faction might have players who earned more individual honor due to underpopulated bonuses. It is not like AV or WSG, where the faction that wins the battleground earns the most honor. The distribution in Frontiers would work differently. The intention is for small scale PvPers to earn the modt honor.
The Heavy Weight Division
Round 2! FIGHT!
At Madison Square Garden 10PM
You are viewing the objectives as a win condition involving flag capture or keep takes. In such scenarios the large faction will dominate, especially considering the lack of AE abilities in WoW. However, the purpose of the Frontiers isn't just for your faction to win the battle, but for individual players to earn honor. That is what players care about more than anything. Even if the overpopulated faction won a Frontier Battle, the less populated faction might have players who earned more individual honor. It is not like AV or WSG, where the faction that wins the battleground earns the most honor. The distribution in Frontiers would work differently.
One question... How are you going to balance factions in an open world encounter that anyone can join?
The Heavy Weight Division
Round 2! FIGHT!
At Madison Square Garden 10PM
I mean... Its sort of like a heavyweight(me) bullying a toddler(gnoll), but yea, I can get behind this!
I think of this more as a debate exercise. Whether hes so out of touch that he believes this stuff, or whether he is intentionally choosing a contentious topic to create conversation (ie: trolling), I'm all for it. Its a fun exercise and I'm usually onboard until he stops adding new information to the conversation.
You are viewing the objectives as a win condition involving flag capture or keep takes. In such scenarios the large faction will dominate, especially considering the lack of AE abilities in WoW. However, the purpose of the Frontiers isn't just for your faction to win the battle, but for individual players to earn honor. That is what players care about more than anything. Even if the overpopulated faction won a Frontier Battle, the less populated faction might have players who earned more individual honor. It is not like AV or WSG, where the faction that wins the battleground earns the most honor. The distribution in Frontiers would work differently.
One question... How are you going to balance factions in an open world encounter that anyone can join?
Because it isn't about winning the battle in a frontier, as much as it is about farming honor. The goal is to make solo/small group play the best way to honor farm. This could be achieved through underpopulation bonuses. The Frontiers are about earning Honor on an individual basis. The underpopulated faction would earn more honor from objectives and kills. If more players on the underpopulated faction realized the best honor was in the Frontiers, then they might join. That is how it would balance out. If players in the overpopulated faction are receiving less honor, then perhaps they would return to doing battlegrounds. You would have fewer players to kill and more honor to split when in the larger faction. Don't think of it as being like WSG or AV, where the winning faction gets the best honor reward.
Why Zerg in a Frontier if you could get better honor from a crossrealm AV? What if the group that deals the most damage only gets honor? There are additional anti-zerg mechanics available. The Highest Honor gain would be from killing players, not doing a small scale objective. The objectives exist to spread players around.
Players already get honor points for PvP in battlegrounds.. except battlegrounds are a more controlled and balanced environment by design. If your argument is that single players don't get enough honor when they lose battlegrounds, this outdoor thing does nothing to help... if you are on the smaller faction, you're still going to lose. And then you'd get the same honor you would have in a battleground.
It sounds like you're trying to find a way to spread players out so you're more likely to end up in 1v1 situations. You can already do this... just go out into any given contested territory and go hunt.
This whole idea is just a solution looking for a problem.