Ember Isle PVP Rework (Codename: Ember Isle Conflict)
This concept serves the duel purpose of reworking Ember Isle to make it relevant again while also giving a more long term open world like pvp solution.
This is a persistant pvp zone. Not an instance per say (though I suppose whatever way is easiest for them to achieve it with. Its basically Conquest (but much better) that never ends though it does have periods of lesser activity.
The Basics:
All pvp stats are normalized and this content is accessible to anyone level 10 and up (they are scaled up using the Runic Library mechanics introduced in the BoB patch). You gain gear that is usuable only here (with a few exceptions, see below).
All of Ember Isle is used save the water areas.
All mobs are removed except the mobs in Dormant Core (more on that later).
No Rifts spawn but raid tears do appear. These can be used to open the new pvp rifts (more on that later)
The volcano area is gated off (more on that later).
Sourcewells and the 3 main cities are the primary points of conflict.
Capturing Sourcewells enables you access to certain seige weapons (purchasable at your city). You can stockpile seige weapons but they disappear when you leave the map.
Lifesprings are now defense generators. In order to attack a defense arch you must destroy all defense generators or use seige weaponry. Destroying a defense arch grants you control of the sourcewell.
Turrets are still a means of defending sourcewells and function as before.
Each city has a defense arch as well. In order to enter the city you have to destroy the defense pillars on either side of the city entrance to remove the barrier.
City Barriers can only be attacked once every defense arch belonging to that city has been destroyed.
Seige weapons do much higher damage to all city defenses.
Each city has 4 defense arches belonging to it for a total of 12 among all 3 cities.
You can teleport to a defense arch if it has at least 2 (of 4) of its generators working.
Turrets will tell you in zone chat what sourcewell is being attacked and by how many generally.
When a city is captured, the victor is declared and the zone enters a period of stability for 30 minutes. After that time all the sourcewells reset, the Volcano becomes inaccessible and the Dormant Core mobs are reset.
You can continue to do pvp rifts during the period of stability. Also if Dormant Core has not been cleared, that can be done as well. Sourcewells, defense pillars and the city defense arch all become unattackable. At the time a victor is declared all players within the cities are expelled in order to "clean out" the area.
The Secondary Systems:
There are three main secondary systems in this zone. The first is purely pvp, the second is pvp and pve and the third is purely PVE.
PVP rifts are back! But now they award currency used to purchase seige weaponry (you can also loot these from players or from capturing sourcewells). They work for the most part as before, the provide a flashpoint for pvp.
PVP rifts and Dormant Core both award loot (armor and weapons for dormant core. Sigils, accessories and essences for pvp rifts) but this loot only works inside this zone. Otherwise your stats are normalized for all gear
.
Dormant Core is a open world pvp raid area. You get loot that drops off the normal raid mobs (rarely) and then the boss at the bottom drops a chest that each player gets to loot from (contribution bronze or better required, yes the contribution meter makes its triumphant return!). They also drop currency used for seige equipment (as do pvp rifts).
The third system at play here is The Volcano. This area is sealed during conflict and open only to the winning side after. The portal for the winning side takes you inside Infernal Dawn for a 20 man raid. Here you fight the 4 spirits of Mount Carcera driven mad by corruption to the sourcewells. This is the only place where you can get loot that works outside the Conflict map. As the bosses (and mobs rarely) drop loot for the zone but also drop currency for the raid tear below the current max (so FE stones) and the current PVP marks (myrm) as well as RIC's. The idea is to make this appealing to all types of players. PVE, PVP and people who do Conflict exclusively. Mobs inside the volcano grant both exp and favor/prestige.
To wrap this all up the basic thought is to really create an objective driven pvp system with its own checks and balances but one that allows access to alot of players and is large enough to not be laggy as all hell constantly. Moreover to reward players of all types for doing content that may be new or unfamiliar to them. And for sub max level players an opportunity to have a different and unique leveling experience where they can if not compete completely even, at least have some chance of surviving against a max level player.
I also wanted to wipe the slate clean and have an internal gear system so there is advancement, but it doesn't let people who are already myrmidon just walk all over everyone.
Using Ember Isle I think lets the zone have a permanent place in the game (something it deserves) but it works because its a large zone with already built in objectives. There is alot of behind the scenes work required to make a pvp system like this happen. This isn't something that would be ready in a month. But since there is little to no graphic work added, it will cut down on some of the production time and resources required to make this happen.
I didn't talk to much about seige weaponry as I think the team can surprise us there. We have catapults already in the game (graphically speaking). But we also have cool stuff like mechs that are uniquely Rift. There is alot of room for cool seige weaponry ideas. I also didn't go into much detail on the pvp rifts, again the designers have been making Rifts for 3 years. They can easily come up with something much better than I can.
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