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The real problem with the Stronghold Marauders event...
theraxin
Member Posts: 373 Arc User
Actually, first I actually wanted to talk some aesthetic of the guild/alliance events, but as there's no other talk on the Marauders than how bad is the reward, I considered stepping back and just starting with the basics.
Would the reward increase in Marauders would make the content good? Well, it would make it better, but after the bad -> Meh progression it'll only make a boring to play, easy to bot and a mentally dissolving mob grindfest.
That shouldn't be a guild event. Grinding down mobs wave after wave (literally) needs just as much team effort and strategy as que-ing into VT. This is not a thing that you are crave for to do with your online friends. This is when you feel that your guild is not to help you, just to use you as a resource to generate things for itself.
And the lazy design just radiates from it. It utilize nothing of the place it's on, even the size of the event does not match with it, making more than the half of the map just useless and there's no real diversity even when something different occurs. A spawned catapult and heavy troops essentially changing nothing on the overall experience nor makes strategical decisions to change.
Like, compare this event with the Dragonflight. 4 dragons having different playstyles, a generally easy set of rules and some empowerer to have something to look at (or not). This is by default is very simple to digest, but executing an optimal strategy to take down all the 4 needs actual social work and planning. You couldn't just rush out a mindless zombie army to kill dragons, because they are gonna fail. Someone will kill too soon... but enough talking, I hope the point can be seen. This is a guild content with an at the moment not that rewarding rewards. This can be easily fixed by making some use of fangs instead of the 80 Seal of elements (or protectors in the next mod). Because the Dragonflight is (at least for me) feels good to play and it's rewards the players who think (at least until the points where you are not overgeared to the point where it does not really matters).
Now, with the Marauders, that would need a whole redesign.
The easier approach is to double the portals and place them all over the map. The players just shouldn't wait, see where it spawned and slash. Don't make everything trivial and linear and handed out. At first it would seem chaotic and the strategy will be still to wait them in the endpoints. But, by the randomness how the portals spawns and how much time it needs to the mobs to get there, by this randomness some gates will be naturally harder to defeat from the hordes than others. Just by the fact that in that moments more mob has appeared to be there. This means that there's communication needed, strategy involved and some people have to be aware not just the fact that where is that help needed, but where can you send it. Because if the south are getting smashed there's a chance that you still cannot move forces from the east, because they are at the moment having a hard time as well. And someone starts to question if this is the actual optimal strategy...
They might send out some scout to check a few portal if they spawned. They can find out the trivials of spawning. And now, more experienced and/or enthusiastic players spend a ton of time and effort to analyze how these attacks happen, what pattern they generally follow. Because of course, even if it's not that flat, this still has a limited diversity. And this is not all bad. They will found those outer gathering sites, where by accident or by intent (and later you can easily see that it should be intentional), mobs from 2-4 portals are gathering as a strong group and then going toward for the south for example. It can be a strict valley where they must because this is the shortest or just their spawn times syncronized in that way. Or in other, similar case, regarless of with 2-4 of the 6 portal started spawning at the south zone, the mobs are gathering at that crossroad and waiting a few secs for their last group to reinforce them and then go further. And then the revelation comes, "we should be defending those points!" And then, more communication and strategy is needed. The new defend points now are way further from each others, there might be multiple way to go from 1 point to an other. What should the south team do when the east team fails, They don't really know if there's no mob coming, they cannot see them yet coming/not coming.
And as you can see, that was just changing the portal placement and spawn and yet, it can make a whole different experience, open up a lot of space. And I haven't even mentioned what would happen if the stolen loot would not just drop on the floor, but actually hoarded up in one of the few secured point and now you have to try find it and snatch it back...
And yes, that loot needs to be better, because now you are not just added a difficulty level, but strategy and complexity, which actually reward the well-communicating and strategic groups, not the well-geared and/or monotonous grinders. And yes, if someone played MOBA-s, they can see the similarities.
Would the reward increase in Marauders would make the content good? Well, it would make it better, but after the bad -> Meh progression it'll only make a boring to play, easy to bot and a mentally dissolving mob grindfest.
That shouldn't be a guild event. Grinding down mobs wave after wave (literally) needs just as much team effort and strategy as que-ing into VT. This is not a thing that you are crave for to do with your online friends. This is when you feel that your guild is not to help you, just to use you as a resource to generate things for itself.
And the lazy design just radiates from it. It utilize nothing of the place it's on, even the size of the event does not match with it, making more than the half of the map just useless and there's no real diversity even when something different occurs. A spawned catapult and heavy troops essentially changing nothing on the overall experience nor makes strategical decisions to change.
Like, compare this event with the Dragonflight. 4 dragons having different playstyles, a generally easy set of rules and some empowerer to have something to look at (or not). This is by default is very simple to digest, but executing an optimal strategy to take down all the 4 needs actual social work and planning. You couldn't just rush out a mindless zombie army to kill dragons, because they are gonna fail. Someone will kill too soon... but enough talking, I hope the point can be seen. This is a guild content with an at the moment not that rewarding rewards. This can be easily fixed by making some use of fangs instead of the 80 Seal of elements (or protectors in the next mod). Because the Dragonflight is (at least for me) feels good to play and it's rewards the players who think (at least until the points where you are not overgeared to the point where it does not really matters).
Now, with the Marauders, that would need a whole redesign.
The easier approach is to double the portals and place them all over the map. The players just shouldn't wait, see where it spawned and slash. Don't make everything trivial and linear and handed out. At first it would seem chaotic and the strategy will be still to wait them in the endpoints. But, by the randomness how the portals spawns and how much time it needs to the mobs to get there, by this randomness some gates will be naturally harder to defeat from the hordes than others. Just by the fact that in that moments more mob has appeared to be there. This means that there's communication needed, strategy involved and some people have to be aware not just the fact that where is that help needed, but where can you send it. Because if the south are getting smashed there's a chance that you still cannot move forces from the east, because they are at the moment having a hard time as well. And someone starts to question if this is the actual optimal strategy...
They might send out some scout to check a few portal if they spawned. They can find out the trivials of spawning. And now, more experienced and/or enthusiastic players spend a ton of time and effort to analyze how these attacks happen, what pattern they generally follow. Because of course, even if it's not that flat, this still has a limited diversity. And this is not all bad. They will found those outer gathering sites, where by accident or by intent (and later you can easily see that it should be intentional), mobs from 2-4 portals are gathering as a strong group and then going toward for the south for example. It can be a strict valley where they must because this is the shortest or just their spawn times syncronized in that way. Or in other, similar case, regarless of with 2-4 of the 6 portal started spawning at the south zone, the mobs are gathering at that crossroad and waiting a few secs for their last group to reinforce them and then go further. And then the revelation comes, "we should be defending those points!" And then, more communication and strategy is needed. The new defend points now are way further from each others, there might be multiple way to go from 1 point to an other. What should the south team do when the east team fails, They don't really know if there's no mob coming, they cannot see them yet coming/not coming.
And as you can see, that was just changing the portal placement and spawn and yet, it can make a whole different experience, open up a lot of space. And I haven't even mentioned what would happen if the stolen loot would not just drop on the floor, but actually hoarded up in one of the few secured point and now you have to try find it and snatch it back...
And yes, that loot needs to be better, because now you are not just added a difficulty level, but strategy and complexity, which actually reward the well-communicating and strategic groups, not the well-geared and/or monotonous grinders. And yes, if someone played MOBA-s, they can see the similarities.
2
Comments
One suggestion I'd have to add a little flavor is to add "siege camps" for the attacking army. Leave the standard Stronghold mobs in place; but add t1, t2, and t3 HEs for each supply site. Locate these some distance away from the SH so a "scouting party" would have to leave the SH defenders to attack.
Place a catapault and un-agroing "supply stealers" in every round. When the t1 HE is cleared, the catapaults no longer appear. When the t2 HE is cleared, the agroable (non-supply stealers) advancement slows; i.e. reduce the number of attacks per wave from three to one. When the t3 is cleared, all of the supplies may be delivered. Of course, these HEs would have to be much more difficult than the "standard" stronghold HEs (something like making the event t1s similar to SH t3s).
Continue to use the same mechanics at the stronghold (defend the supplies or lose them), but add the HEs as a way to secure the supplies faster. Groups that wish to run it the way it's being done now wouldn't see much of a difference. But, done correctly, this would add a whole new element to the event, making it unique enough that it might be worth running "just for kicks."
Another layer of strategy could be that you have to make decisions about where to deploy the various roles more heavily. Perhaps there are some mobs that hit hard, move fast, but can be controlled to some degree. A few well-positioned Oppressors (yay, loadouts!) make that fight easier.
Perhaps there are some mobs that can spawn that require a few good tanks to handle, or others that have nasty AoE damage attacks (similar to the green dragon).
Some mobs could explode on death (like some of the ice trolls, but more devastating) making ranged loadouts the best choice.
Some mobs might hit hard at range when an enemy gets near, but stealth or effective dodges let you get in range safely for that kill shot.
There's a lot that can be done with Marauders. I actually enjoy it as-is (once a week, per toon, with the current rewards) but with a little renovation it could be a real gem of a skirmish.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
Funny, that made me think that IG actually has bosses, while Marauders don't have "Raid leaders".