If I were to revamp fort fighting, there are several things I would do. Everyone who is an avid fort fighter has their own list but here's mine (in no particular order):
Tracker's Top Ten list of desired changes in fort fighting (this is just meant to show that there is a lot that can be done to change fort fighting and it's not meant to hijack this discussion on the merits of any of the ideas or even a discussion about them, just that there are many changes that CAN be made to make fort fighting more appealing and more interesting - - - I'd bet not one of us still plays Tic-Tac-Toe and there's a reason for that ... it became stale, boring and predictable and so too will fort fights if something isn't done about them).
1. Eliminate most sectors. I'd keep the concepts of sectors in place for interior buildings, towers, walls, around the flag and on the flag. Basically any area that has bonuses. Where sectors remained, they would be "controlled" so that only one side can be in such a controlled sector (this is still crucial for sitting on the flag after all and you would have to vanquish the enemy from a tower, building or section of wall before being able to take control of the reinforcement area yourself).
2. Change movement. By eliminating sectors, players would be more free to move but they couldn't just just 40 spaces from one side of the fort to another. The player would still need one move to either enter or leave a "sector" (the few that remain) but outside of that they could be given the ability to move up to 4 spaces when fully healthy and reduce their movement based on health (injured players don't move as quickly, so at 75% you're limited to 3 squares, 50% is 2 squares and 25% or less and you're limited to a single square).
3. Eliminate character bonuses on negative sectors: I'd eliminate the character bonuses for any character that ventured into a negative bonus sector. You're making yourself a target, do you seriously think standing on a mound in the middle of a fort and saying shoot me should also preserve your ability to ghost?
4. Add pre-battle info for ranking: Put more information into the hands of a ranking official before the battle : This includes placing in the table the weapon type, showing on the fort mini-map not only their location but if they've set their movement and where it's been set to as well (attackers will then not rank as many players who are squatting, flag rushing or not following the battle plan).
5. AI Target selection : I'd have the system shoot the easiest opponent to hit instead of merely the closest (Would I seriously shoot at a reinforced opponent in a tower instead of his buddy exposed on the ground just a foot or two further away?). This could even be extended to "true sniping" where a player could select their target and you would shoot that target the next round (skip shooting in the current round and if you don't have LOS on the selected target next round ... too bad - snipe failed).
6. Add weapon range to the current weapons : This would encourage people to use better weapons and give consequences for not doing so. Death Scythe = 1 square, stone = 3 squares, bow = 6 squares .... Winchester and GG's = 30 squares. A rusty musket would have longer range than a precise crossbow so there might actually be a benefit to upgrading to a wider variety of weaponry (currently most fort fighters only equip themselves with precise weapons and this would change this behavior for some players).
7. Limit opponent information: Turn off the health scale and maybe even the names on the opponents. There's black powder flying everywhere so should you have the ability to do a complete medical assessment and identification of each opponent in the battle? Combined with the elimination of sectors this would make for some very interesting battle interactions. We don't get a green dot on the opponents so why do we get a medical update and name?
8. Fort Battle damage: This should be added so that a fort that is reinforced and difficult to take could effectively be placed "under siege" by consecutive attacks that require a defender to either maintain their fort or lose it. This wouldn't apply just to forts that were lost but also forts that were engaged in long battles and the chance would be higher for sections of the fort that were occupied as well.
9. Change in fort layouts : Either by allowing the builders to do so at the time the fort is built or just mix it up and have each of the 120 forts have buildings/walls/towers located a bit differently would make each fort more unique. This would also mean that some forts are easier to take and some are easier to hold. Different tactics would have to be used on some forts as well.
10. Verify Online Status: Determine if a player really is online during a battle by making them enter/refresh the fort screen (somewhat like what occurred early in W15/Colorado when it would take 7 or more cycles before a battle started, but limit it to just 1 so the person has to enter the battle ... or another way to confirm would be to require a player to enter a randomly displayed code at the end of the battle to verify they were "online" to get the online bonds credit --- eliminate this foolish fake online squatting business).
11. Allow for battlefield promotions/demotions : This would extend to the point that traitors could even get bumped from their location if they were not moving but in most cases demoting an individual should be a "last resort". This would change their movement priority as well as their shooting priority. A demotion could also carry with it some effect on the end-game total as well for that player. Only an online player could be promoted or demoted by this method to prevent abuse.
12. Awards/Achievements: Add more fort awards by battle (the system could do this for exception performances and it would merely be like a medal or certificate, not a box or anything like that here). Over 5000 damage, more than 5KO's, more than 50 dodges, more than 100 dodges, self sacrificing acts of heroism (actively taking point), etc.
13. Unique random drop: Give a small chance (1/10th of 1% for example) for a random drop item during a battle. This would give one drop for every 1000 fort fights for example on average, not significant but it would create post battle buzz ... especially when the item is good or unique (or make the items unique so that they can only be obtained in fort fights .... Little Big Horn Sabre Scabbard for example or Crazy Horses mustang). The point here is to give the fort fighter something that they can obtain in no other way making them more special/unique (but not more powerful because that would effect game balance due to the rarity of these items)
14. Unnerf fort fighting skills: Change the ^.4 on the fort fighting skills because this makes most skills effectively maxed at the 30-50 range and encourages rampant health as the only unmodified skill in fort fighting. If a person who was a 400 point dodger could be as effective at holding a tower/wall as a person who dumped 400 points in health then we might see more variety in the types and skills of the player characters in a battle.
15. Take away town points for fort ownership. A town merely declares a battle (or purchases the fort) even the largest town can not hold a fort on their own, nor can they take a fort on their own so why should one town get all the points for "owning" a fort. This silly (I won't go so far as to call it stupid, but it crossed my mind) feature also encourages hoarding of forts.
16. "Garrison" defense concept: This requires a fort to have a sufficient membership close enough to effectively "defend" a fort from a sudden attack. The further a fort is from the owning town, the higher the garrison requirements. If a fort fails to meet the minimum garrison requirement at the time a fort is "dug" then the fort falls immediately and there is no battle (taking over a fort that is not occupied and can not muster a minimal defense at the gate should be immediate). This would help prevent some of the town/alliance hording of forts. Can a town with all it's residents in county D1 effectively defend a fort in county A10? As a town gets more forts, it's responsibility in making sure that all forts are adequately defended (garrisoned) becomes more difficult. I'm not suggesting that a garrison needs to be in the fort, just in the county where a fort exists (120 forts, 50 residents per town .... at some point it should become increasingly difficult to hold on to multiple forts and with all the "No Multi/No Counter" rules/agreements in place this is just another idea to control this problem).
17. Put a cap on alliances. Both on number of residents and number of towns. Curb the "Mega- Alliances" and you might have more complex game interactions instead of just devolving to 2 sides scheduling a battle once or twice a day.
18. Allow remote sign up for EVERYONE. Currently you can only sign up to a fort if you're a member of the alliance on either the attacking or defending side. A small alliance attacking a fort is at a serious disadvantage for getting people to participate. The limitations on only being able to sign up for defense if your alliance is a member of the fort would still apply as well as only being able to sign up for the attack if it was your alliance attacking, but if you were a non-allied member then you could choose which side to join before being at the fort. Sometimes it takes several hours to travel to a fort,then you have to be online to sign up for it too .... just make it a single action and be done with it.
19. Teach Tracker to count to 10 in a top 10 list!!!! Man, that dude can really ramble on sometimes .........
I just thought of #20 in my top 10 list (ironic isn't it, but this may be one of the easiest, fairest and most successful ways to increase fort member participation):
20. Make participation in fort battles based on a first come, first serve basis and throw out the entire ranking process in-so-far as who gets into a battle or not. If you're defending a small fort and you're one of the first 42 to sign up AND you're at the fort, you're IN. What's wrong with this ... EVERYTHING ... and that's what makes it so great. First of all, people who sign up know if they're going to get into a fort battle when they sign up, leaders and fort owners won't have this high HP or my alliance/town clique system anymore, if you see someone signup who isn't going to be a good fort fighter then either train them or duel them before they get to the fort to KO them and send them home or negotiate with them to not show up but with this in place then everybody has an equal chance (more or less) of getting into fort fights. Exceptions could be made for attacking towns and fort owners/members but that would be as far as you could nerf this idea and even that might be too much.
