With all the dicussion going on in the Dev Forums I was side tracked today. I ended up spending the greater part of my day coming up with new ideas for the current campaign. After much thinking and typing here is what I came up with, 5 pages later. (Sorry about the formatting Word to Web just doesn’t look amazing)
*Warning: Incoming wall of text*
Here’s how I would improve the campaign.
The major flaw of the new system is its single point of failure. If you can’t support the ram you can’t take the keep. In order to change that there needs to be multiple ways to victory. Since we are being hypothetical I figured I’d throw my idea out there.
Using the PQ & Resource systems that are already in place in WAR and things that were done in DAOC this new system would work in the following way. (Skaven will remain the same as live except packmaster with 1.4.1 changes)
PQ:
Attackers:
Stage 1: Breach the walls
Below are the multiple ways to complete this task and what you will use to do this.
– Destroy the door
o Ram
o Trebuchet – See below
o Ballista
o Rat Ogres
– Destroy a portion of the wall
o Trebuchet
o Catapult – See below
o Bombs – See below
– Seize the oil room for 5 – 10 minutes and outer door will open (Time to be better determined through testing. Approximate time to take down undefended wall/door possibly? Option is only available when keep is defended by x amount of players maybe?) Ways to accomplish this include:
o Orcapults – See below
o Rat Ogres
o Flying Mounts – See below
o Picklock
o Siege towers – See below
o Skaven Mines – See below
Stage 2: Breach the inner sanctum
Below are the multiple ways to complete this task and what you will use to do this.
– Destroy the door
o Ram
o Trebuchet
o Ballista
o Rat Ogres
– Destroy a portion of the wall or inner Citadel itself
o Trebuchet
o Catapult
o Bombs
– Seize the bottom floor for 2 – 5 minutes (Time to be better determined through testing. Approximate time to take down undefended wall/door possibly? Option is only available when keep is defended by x amount of players?) Ways to accomplish this include:
o Orcapults
o Rat Ogres
o Flying Mounts
o Picklock
o Skaven Mines
o Siege Towers
Stage 3: Capture the keep
If inner sanctum standing
– Seize the Lord room for 2 – 5 minutes
If inner sanctum is destroyed
– 30 seconds – 2 minutes on flag
*Also Trolls/Axe throwers would be available for use.
Defenders: (Respawn at nearest controlled bo or keep for stages 1 & 2 and bo for stage 3)
Stage 1: Defend the walls
Below are ways that defenders can defend
– Use siege equipment (Ballista, Trebuchet, Catapults, Trolls/Axe throwers)
– Disarm Bombs
– Flying Mounts
– Divine Alter – See below
– Mine collapse – See below
– Rebuild
Stage 2: Defend inner sanctum
Below are ways that defenders can defend
– Use siege equipment (Ballista, Trebuchet, Catapults, Trolls/Axe throwers)
– Disarm Bombs
– Flying Mounts
– Divine Alter – See below
– Rebuild
– Mine collapse – See below
Stage 3:
Inner Sanctum is still standing but breached (Eg. Wall or door down):
Below are ways that defenders can defend
– Use siege equipment (Ballista, Trebuchet, Catapults, Trolls/Axe throwers)
– Flying Mounts
– Divine Alter – See below
– Rebuild
Inner Sanctum is destroyed:
– Use siege equipment (Ballista, Trebuchet, Catapults, Trolls/Axe throwers)
– Flying Mounts
Expanding on the above: (Possibly all upgradable with bos – See Bos section)
– Keep Ranks: Bring back the old keep rank system. Giving the ability to pay to upgrade keeps and their offensive and defensive abilities. Able to buy better things at keeps as they rank.
– Ram – Sam function as it is currently serving in the game
– Ballista – Sam function as it is currently serving in the game
– Trebuchet – Able to damage doors and walls
– Catapult – Able to fire boulders (AOE damage/knockdown or knockback)
o Upgradable to fire dead/diseased animal corpses into keeps – Bought with ordinance or skulls (Last a while like maybe 5 minutes or so doing aoe damage to those around them limited in how many are available and how close they can be “placed” to one another)
o Fire – Burning dots
o Ice – to freeze players in place
– Orcapults – Able to throw players onto or over the walls. Work similar to the ones used in Gates of Ekrund.
– Siege Towers – Are created at the attacking keep and must be pulled by horse/pushed by troll(Maybe player pulled?) across the zone to the other sides keep to be deployed there.
– Axethrowers – Able to do aoe damage to an area.
– Trolls – Repurposed to throw stones at doors and walls(Similar to trebuchets but not as good)
o Upgraded able to larger sizes using skulls
– Bombs
o Carried from the attacking keep on a player.
o They have a timer which if unused before a certain time expires on the carrier causing them to die. 5 minutes like the siege equipment buffs.
o Once placed at a keep they must be defended for a minute before they explode and do damage to the wall.
o No bombs for doors
– Skaven Mines
o Attackers:
o Able to use new skaven known as Skaven miners to dig tunnels at certain points underneath the keep walls and into the inner sanctum.
o Mines happen in stages.
o Each new stage in a mine must be reinforced to continue digging.
o They will require wood and other resources provided by Bos.
o Defenders:
o Are able to collapse parts of the tunnel by removing the reinforcements at the chance of weaken the wall above it.
o Also if they are able to fight back the attackers, they can use the piles of dirt from the attackers digging, located outside the wall to fill in the hole. Depending on the amount of people helping out this could be a quick or slow process.
– Flying Mounts
o Similar to the current way they are.
o Possibly double the amount available.
o Give the player alternate paths to use.
New Upgradable BO System:
Bos will now serve a greater purpose. The longer a bo is held by a realm the greater things that can be created and produced by it. They will probably need to be graphically updated to reflect this.
Rank 0:
– BO is dormant nothing is happening not captured by either side.
Rank 1
– BO is captured and begins to level up using a resource system similar to keeps currently.
– At this point NPCs can be created at the bo. These NPCS go out into resources pits or mines and begin collecting resources to level up the bo. (Alternatively players can help in the leveling process) Think RTS resource collecting.
– After a certain amount of resources are gathered the bo ranks up.
Rank 2
– Basic Siege weapons become available here
– Respawn/teleport for controlling available here
– Produce wood and mining stuff for Skaven Miners
Rank 3
– A siege workshop is created
– More advanced siege is available
Rank 4
– Miners and most advanced siege become available. Workshop upgraded
– Skaven Miners available
Rank 5
– Piece of siege tower is available to be built at workshop
– When all the Bos have been controlled and have produced their piece for a siege tower, that realm is able to build 1 siege tower at their keep. They are able to do this as many times as they like, however they are limited to 2 at any one time.
– At this point it must be escort across the zone to the other keep
– During this process they can be sabotage by the opposite realm. Such as killing the trolls pushing/ horses pulling or destroying the wheels. At this point the realm whos siege tower it is will either have to repair the wheels or gather new horses/trolls from the keep to pull the siege tower.
– The siege tower is extremely hard to destroy however it can be delayed.
How a BO flip works:
Using a flag system similar to what we have now players are able to take control of the other sides bo. However each time a bo is flipped it loses either a rank or a certain amount of resources. All progress on further rank options is halted and possibly lost. (eg. Piece of siege tower is lost) Possibly able to capture or destroy workshop from other realm. This way you can steal the siege tower piece they are creating. Maybe other upgrades can be done through it as well. (Again like an rts)
The opposing realm is then able to use it at its own and upgrade/use it as it pleases.
*Alternatively mounted players could be used to move all siege around.
Conclusion:
There it is I’m sure there are other things that could easily be added to a system like this and improved. These are my ideas. Feel free to use them to improve the Warhammer Campaign.
Hope they help,
Vauleen
Vauleen of Volkmar 