Best Of

I just think it'd create resentment from people who can't participate, either because they don't have the gear or class, or from combatants who "lost" their place to someone who either just wants to try it out or isn't the optimal choice. 

If it's a worthwhile reward then only the top people would ever go, if it's not a good reward then people just wouldn't show up or bother about it.

Like with the domoth locking, people don't really enjoy that. It's not fun and it doesn't even encourage the other side from contesting while enemies are down a whole organisation. 

Deathballs are pretty much a design choice at this point as well. There are a bunch of ways to not have deathballs and none of those methods have been pursued.

Domoth locking is already a pretty weirdly awful mechanic that should be changed. How would the random participants be determined? What if it just pits 6 random noncoms against one another? Or worse, pits a bunch of noncoms against seasoned combatants? Who decides who gets to go if it's a choice?

"This incentivizes people who want to participate in these specialized conflicts to “get good” and be chosen for their alliance to attend."

Or it just creates another elitist class of PKers and makes people who aren't fully artied up feel excluded, similar to the situation some people feel about aetherhunts.

Organisations aren't balanced populations wise and are often split across time zones.

The mess with conflict isn't an issue that can be fixed by any admin decision.

I know I don't really have a horse in this race but I don't like the idea of code-enforced alliances.

I think we need mechanically enforced small scale PVP to escape the deathball monotony.

Idea 1: Domoths.

Domoths are boring. Most go unchallenged because it’s too easy to wait for your team to have overwhelming numbers before you initiate a claim or upgrade.

This idea requires a coded way for organizations to be allies/enemies, but essentially, when a domoth is challenged and pops onto a bubble, it spits out a random (let’s say 6 to 10) number of participants that can access the bubble.

So if 10 pops, then 5 people from one alliance can fight 5 people from the other alliance. This incentivizes people who want to participate in these specialized conflicts to “get good” and be chosen for their alliance to attend.

Timequakes, villages, wild nodes, etc. remain as the mass participation mechanics that everyone can jump in and (lol) enjoy.

Idea 2: Org vs. Org conflict events.

Have specific events that happen once or twice a game year that only Magnagora vs. Celest, Serenwilde vs. Glomdoring, Halifax vs. Gaudiguch can participate in. I don’t care if there’s a mechanical benefit, fluff and daily credits are good enough.

This way, even if you don’t have the numbers to engage in alliance-wide conflict, you can field a team of your orgmates and duke it out against your hated enemies for glory or whatever.

I think the benefit of systems like this, other than not getting instantly nuked by large enemy teams or not having enough people to participate all together, is that it gives people more of a chance to practice and occasionally get a win without being overwhelmed, builds skill and confidence for larger scale combat, and breaks up the monotony of current deathball mechanics for something a little more dynamic.

Is this something others would like to see? Any better ideas for how to make it happen?