Mechanical Quickies #2 - City Capture
July 14, 2008 – 11:20 amToday, let’s talk about City Capture in Warhammer Online! According to the latest word coming from Mark Jacobs, Mythic Entertainment is heavily considering a rotating cities model, where only two cities are capturable at any given time. To unlock a city for capture, we must control at least two of the three Tier 4 pairings. To control a pairing, we must push the enemy all the way back to their main T4 fortress, and actually overtake it.
Here’s a little snippet from a recent Ten Ton Hammer interview with Mark Jacobs to give you some additional context:
What we’re thinking about doing is rotating in cities, in and out. In the RvR, so let’s say in the content expansion another city pairing comes up. So the old cities get turned off to RvR. It’s not going to be there as a focus for that. Players can focus on whatever the current pairing is, and then we rotate in another pairing. When we rotate the cities out it gives us time to go back and make changes to them. To learn from out mistakes, we can say we thought this scenario was great it isn’t, we thought this design was great for the stuff in the city and it wasn’t. So we can take it out of production and put a new city in or update the city and put it back in when a new city pairing comes in. So I think for the long term health for this game I think that is critical. I think it is absolutely critical. I am very happy about this decision. I know it is hard for people to believe, but if you just think about it. Especially for the people who played DAOC, think about the issues in that game, or any game, that has RvR or PvP or something similar, getting people to focus on something can be a challenge. This forces them to focus.
Part of the reasoning Mark gives is that this rotation feature will give Mythic a chance to refine cities during their downtime and the other part is that having only two cities capturable will give players a goal to focus on. I can’t argue the first part, because I think that’s definitely a positive side effect of this system, however, I want to get into the second part a bit more.
Giving players a focus - does this actually make it any easier?
The way the original model was explained to us, there were going to be three enemy cities, and to open one of them up for capture, you would have had to work your way towards controlling the specific T4 zone and fortress for that pairing.
In the newly proposed system, you will only have one enemy city to focus on, and to unlock it, you must control two out of three T4 zones and fortresses. That’s how I understand it, anyway. Am I wrong? Hope not, because this is what I’m basing my entire stance on! 
Doesn’t the new system actually seem MORE difficult to any of you? Needing to control two zones to capture one city seems a lot more difficult than controlling one zone to unlock one city to me…
Mark is arguing that the players focus in the original system would be split across three pairings, which would be way too spread out to actually accomplish anything. If that were the case, sure, it would be a problem. Fortunately, most players aren’t complete morons. I don’t think it would take very long to realize in the original proposal it would be in your best interest to focus your attack on one front to drive towards its capital. In the new system, you have to coordinate a major offensive in TWO zones, which is vastly more difficult imho.
Let’s not forget defense either. In the original system, if the players were focusing their offensive in one zone, you only had to really defend one zone. In this new system, you have to split your defense into two zones. You’ve just doubled the amount of players you must dedicate to offense/defense.
You’ve actually just doubled the amount of player spread… I can’t really think of any way that this city capture model is any better than the previous one based on these arguments. Can you?
A friend of mine thinks that in the old system, if one city looked like it was about to be unlocked, people would have simply abandoned the other zones they were fighting in to take up arms in offense and defense. To him, it seemed as if one city would always be the focus no matter what, so he doesn’t think this new system changes that inevitability. That sounds a lot like what Mythic wants with this new system, except you wouldn’t have to capture two fronts to make it happen…
Hopefully, my understanding of how they want and wanted it to play out is correct. From what I’ve read on a few different sites, that’s seems to be how he’s explaining himself. Thanks to Wizards and Wenches for inspiring this post.
Am I way off base here?
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30 Responses to “Mechanical Quickies #2 - City Capture”
Updated with:
A friend of mine thinks that in the old system, if one city looked like it was about to be unlocked, people would have simply abandoned the other zones they were fighting in to take up arms in offense and defense. To him, it seemed as if one city would always be the focus no matter what, so he doesn’t think this new system changes that inevitability. That sounds a lot like what Mythic wants with this new system, except you wouldn’t have to capture two fronts to make it happen…
By Snafzg on Jul 14, 2008
Yes it does sound more difficult to achieve than in the old system.
What I would really like, is that some DAoC player stopped by and told us what happens there, as it’s mostly that system that WAR builds upon. Are tactics used in how to deploy the forces, or is it just one big happy zerg?
By Regis on Jul 14, 2008
I think we’ll see RvR battles that are much bigger this way then they ever could have been the other way. Then at the same time I can see gigantic battles being waged over the last fortress to unlock the city. Because if that is taken then they’ve got a whole city to defend!
I hope it works out!
By Cicadymn on Jul 14, 2008
@Regis - In DAOC, you had to take all the keeps in an enemy’s frontier to be able to capture that enemy’s relic. That sounds remarkably close to how they’re explaining city capture in WAR.
Can you imagine having to capture all the keeps in BOTH enemy frontiers (e.g., Hibs and Albs if you were a Mid) to be able to take one of their relics? Way more difficult IMHO.
It’s not perfectly applicable because DAOC had a 3-way faction war, not 2-way like it will be in WAR, but I think the correlations are still pretty obvious.
@Cicadymn - I would argue that you would still have an epic battle in their old system. I agree with my friend. If Destruction was on a massive push to take Altdorf, you’d like abandon everything to defend it. Or, you would mount a crazy offensive against either the Greenskin or Dark Elf cities to distract them.
Maybe Mythic wasn’t confident enough that their players would actually exhibit realm pride and defend their capitals? Instead, do they think we’d only attack a different one of theirs?
I guess we’ll never know with this new system. Ironically, the battle will still be waged on two or three fronts no matter what since they require you to control two zones instead of just one.
This makes very little sense to me. Maybe their takedown time for polish of cities trumped everything else and this system was put in place to benefit them more than the players?
Hmmm…
By Snafzg on Jul 14, 2008
My first reaction to hearing the rotation city thing was “WoW’s battleground honor weekends”. So, I guess it could work.
By Syp on Jul 14, 2008
Players will go where the action is. In the original design, I think players would have naturally gathered on a single front. No one likes a boring RvR zone, so they would head where the renown is.
Problem with that is, a realm could throw all its weight into that front. So, what is the point of the other 2 fronts? The ‘losing’ realm could move everyone over to one of them and try for a city capture… but then we have the big armies just missing each other and trading city captures.
While the old system provided options, I don’t know if it would have made for the best battle.
By Werit on Jul 14, 2008
With the new system, people will still go to where the renown is. However, it is more likely that this will be spread out on 2 fronts as there needs to be activity on at two. The defending side will be more likely to defend a zone with the new system as well.
Guilds are another variable: http://werit.blogspot.com/2008/07/war-guilds-and-city-capture.html
I do not think ‘realm pride’ will trump rewards these days. The new breed of player is all about advancement, stats and gear.
Coordination is a tough one because I really have no idea what is available to players in game. I know with me, I will look for an area with activity and go to work
By Werit on Jul 14, 2008
honestly though, with the new system, my opinion is that its going to be harder to capture a city. Yes, more people fighting, but its going to make it way harder. You’re going to have the entirety of both realms fighting against each other in the same zones. It sounds like whoever wins server by server is just going to be which side is over populated: destruction or order.
With this new system there is little to no strategic maneuvering that i figured would take place with the old system - where sides trade cities back and forth constantly.
Also, in the old system, it was important that when your city was sacked, you could always just go to another city on your side. Now, the one and only city being capped means that entire side of the server just got shut down. Everyone is going to fight tooth and nail to not have their only hub for stores/quests/etc. shut off.
The only victory will be who has bigger zergs. at least in the old pairing, if say dwarfs had less people than orcs, they might loose alot, but the rest of order doesn’t suffer that much. Now, if one side has more people, its pretty much game over, move to another server.
This reaks of lack of foresight, and lack of insight on player habits.
By Estorak on Jul 14, 2008
to tack on to that, while i understand not having all the cities ready in time due to the time constraints involved in making them, this rotating cities model is a terrible fix, and it sounds like it was born out of a marketing meeting to put a positive spin on missing 2/3 of the content
By Estorak on Jul 14, 2008
@Esorak: I guess it just comes down to a different view on how the old system would have worked. I didn’t see any ’strategic maneuvering’ happening because players will tend to mass together on a single front.
By Werit on Jul 14, 2008
@Estorak - Damned fine summary of my other thoughts as well that I didn’t include for the sake of brevity in the original post.
@Werit - While, I agree, strategic maneuvering might not have always happened, there is exactly zero chance it can happen in a forced system like this.
You are basically going to fight it out on two fronts and your entire server population will be involved. If they thought city capture was going to take long in the old system, I think there is just as much potential for it to happen in this sytem. Even more so, because everyone is fighting tooth and nail over multiple zones.
With perfect server balance, I don’t think we’ll ever see a city fall, because it will be an endless see-saw. Then it comes down to what Estorak brings up… The side with the bigger numbers will win indefinitely. At least the bigger numbers could have been outmaneuvered by strategic strikes where the zerg’s attention wasn’t currently focused in the old system.
Maybe their entire design for city capture needs to be redrawn from scratch because if they thought it was bad before, and this is the only alternative they can come up with, I think we’re screwed.
By Snafzg on Jul 14, 2008
And again, this is all just here for the sake of discussion. None of this is set in stone until we see how the game plays out, but I can’t foresee it any other way right now.
By Snafzg on Jul 14, 2008
Zerg will be an issue in either system. Zerghammer!
The Zerg is going for the city, in the old system they can concentrate on one front, why would they care if you attacked the Dwarves while they are approaching the inevitable city?
I don’t think they would care at all, which will lead to city trading, which is a bad situation as well.
I can’t really speculate on how long it will take to capture a city. There is just too many unknowns, in either system, for us outsiders.
By Werit on Jul 14, 2008
You bring up a good point. Why does the zerg care?
But at least the non-zergers could get something accomplished in the original concept. In this setup, they’re forced to be fodder.
This is a fundamental flaw in the city capture mechanic imho. You need many many people to compete to make them fun and competitive. Unfortunately, the bigger side will almost always win if the ratio is skewed enough in their favour (regardless of skill).
By Snafzg on Jul 14, 2008
One thing we have to keep in mind is it may take weeks to completely win tiers or it may take a long gaming session. If it takes days/weeks, a zerg cannot be sustained and there will be back and forth within each tier for a while. The more populated side would eventually win, but it would be gradual.
By Werit on Jul 14, 2008
This is true, unless the balance is way out of whack (but they apparently have plans for that).
And I’ll add to my previous statement that if this is the case, I will hopefully have enough fun in 6v6 or 12v12 to sustain my interest in this game.
I never even attempted to help capture a relic in DAOC because I’m not, nor have I ever been interested in feeling like another peon in the war. I enjoy the smaller skirmishes because the things you do actually matter. You feel more heroic.
By Snafzg on Jul 14, 2008
At first I imagined an army just steamrolling over tiers very quickly, capturing everything.
Then I realized that i was only thinking about Open World RvR in Tier 4. Instanced Battlefields will always be equal number wise. PvE will be free from PvP interference, and those are both ways to get victory points. Also, The lower tiers, which are free from Zerg (maybe) will be in contention.
So even if they control the whole Open RvR realm, fair fights will exist in the battlegrounds. How long will it take if the enemy controls all Open World RvR objectives, but battleground points are split?
By Werit on Jul 14, 2008
At this point, that information is unknown to the public right now and unfortunately, I can’t comment either way on it.
By Snafzg on Jul 14, 2008
Yea, there are just so many unknowns and RvR is so… big in scope really.
By Werit on Jul 14, 2008
I’ve more or less kept my own opinions on this subject under wraps untill I’ve had time to calm down. Now in my opinion the changed to the capital city system is one of the BEST things they could have done.
Yes, it does kind of suck that I won’t be able to wander around the greenskin city or burn the stunties beloved city to the ground. However, I agree with the concept of focusing the population.
I disagree with Snafzg. A person is generally not a complete moron (note I said generally). People on the other hand are complete morons. Get them into groups and they do very dumb things. Ask a WoW buddy of yours the evolution of the Alterac Valley battleground. You’ll see the stupidity of groups of people at its finest.
In my opinion the biggest problem with the old capital city system was most likely you were only going to see one city anyway. Unless they made it really easy human nature is going to make everyone push one front hard as many times as they can. Why? Simply. People want to be carried. Alot of them simply don’t want to put in the effort to GET to the raiding of a city. They want others to do it for them. So if a big guild is pushing for a city capture… guess who would follow right behind them?
If in truth the system forced you to fight on multiple fronts to reach the goal of attacking a capital this will fix that problem completely. Now it will take atleast 2 big guilds pushing in two seperate fronts. I like to give my slackers a choice about who they follow. The slackers will still be around but atleast it won’t be a massive zerg push down a single lane.
This fits my original concept of what the capital cities were suppose to accomplish. A WAR effort going across multiple fronts. Not a zerg going down a single front hoping to get near a city. This adds dynamic. Will it be harder? Probably. Is that a bad thing? No to me.
On a seperate note: I’m still pissed that every single orc in the game is going to be a black orc. Welcome to overpopulation.
By Bo on Jul 14, 2008
I wonder what would happen when a pair is won by one side (your realm succesfully takes the fortress. Will it be locked until one realm controls two pairings? Would it reset to the neutral zone and that pairing won’t count towards CC unlock?
And it doesn’t even make sense, imagine that you conquer the dwarf fortress and you have already conquered the high elf one, can you siege altdorf, even if in that pairing you were zerging the chaos fortress?
Hope you understand me
By jmdw12 on Jul 14, 2008
even if the new system works (which i maintain that it won’t), you still have the issue i brought up of what happens now to the side who gets sacked? In the old system, you could go to another city to access the same shops, AH, trainers, do other city’s quests/instances, etc. If necessary, there was a little camp outside the sacked city with some basic things.
Now, when say, order gets sacked, no one has access to city content on the order side, at all. Everyone has to crowd around the dinky camp till the city is retaken.
This seems like a horrible horrible thing to me.
And for the record, i actually liked the idea of trading cities. The way its set up now, honestly, once the overpopulated side wins its first cap, do you really think that losing side is ever going to cap a city on that server, ever? With trading cities, both sides have a good chance to see caps.
It also sounded like, in the old version, that probably 3 coordinated guilds or so on a big vent channel could take a city by themselves, which i think is cool. Likewise, about 3 organized voice chatting guilds could defend a city from a decent size zerg
i dunno, i think in the old system, while the mass of players would still be idiots, organized guilds could make real accomplishments. Now, not at all. No realistic amount of guilds can fight off the zerg of the entire opposing faction. Its now 100% zerg on zerg action, all day, every day.
Boo Yah! except not.
By Estorak on Jul 14, 2008
@jmdw12 - The way Mark has been explaining it, you will unlock Altdorf for capture if you control any two of the three zones. In essence, yes, you could control the Dwarf and High Elf pairing and still unlock the Empire capital… strange, but that’s what it sounds like.
I don’t really think they can do it any other way though if this is the method they’re going with. Forcing you to cap the Empire zone means one of the other two pairings will be virtually ignored.
By Snafzg on Jul 14, 2008
yeah, like the DE are with their lack of tanks and their fully stacked HE opponents.
By Estorak on Jul 14, 2008
area*
By Estorak on Jul 14, 2008
No idea on what the losing side will do when their city is captured. I don’t think they have released those details.
Trading cities makes them worthless, to me anyway. It should be a hard fought battle, not armies avoiding each other and capturing cities while the other one is busy.
It would have been 100% zerg in the old system, actually 2 zergs.
*All speculation due to the fact capturing tiers may take days.
By Werit on Jul 15, 2008
FYI from the faq:
How often are you planning for a capital city to be under attack?
That’s completely in the hands of the players and how well they unite and work together with their realm. We expect that as players get used to the game and their careers, we’ll see a city coming under siege every two weeks with a capture maybe once a month.
By Werit on Jul 15, 2008
“Players will go where the action is. In the original design, I think players would have naturally gathered on a single front. No one likes a boring RvR zone, so they would head where the renown is.
Problem with that is, a realm could throw all its weight into that front. So, what is the point of the other 2 fronts? The ‘losing’ realm could move everyone over to one of them and try for a city capture…” - Syp
The idea was that the time it would take to move through the zone capture would prevent this.
By One-Eyed Jack on Jul 16, 2008
“The Zerg is going for the city, in the old system they can concentrate on one front, why would they care if you attacked the Dwarves while they are approaching the inevitable city?”
A particular zerg might not, but the whole faction won’tbe piled into a single zerg.
By One-Eyed Jack on Jul 16, 2008