As everyone knows, and some are loathe to admit, PPT came with the unintended consequence of relegating the efforts of servers that don’t have 24/7 “coverage” to near nothing, and causing a rash of bandwagoning, and mercenary guild purchasing.
In essence the concept of “skill” winning in WvW is negated by the fact that people have to sleep and work. So, presuming that PPT is one of those things Anet will never scrap, I had a thought.
Mercenaries. No, not the guilds that have no real allegiances. NPC mercenaries. Hear me out, and I apologize if this is an old idea.
What is the biggest problem when people are sleeping? They’re not there to man siege or keep eyes out for enemies, or defend objectives. Well what if you could leave behind NPC mercenaries to man that AC, or notify what human players are on the map of enemy movements?
Think of it this way. Each player, can purchase/recruit 1-5 mercenaries. Based on a new Mastery.
(Mastery: Recruiter) (75 Rank Points to Max)
Lvl 1: Allow one Mercenary. Can be used to scout. (10 Rank Points)
Lvl 2: Allow 2 Mercenaries. Can scout, garrison an objective. (10 Rank Points)
Lvl 3: Allow 3 Mercs. Can scout, garrison, be assigned to siege. (15 Rank Points)
Lvl 4: Allow 3 Regular Mercs, 1 Veteran Merc. Scout, garrison, assign to siege. (20 Rank Points)
Lvl 5: 3 reg. Mercs. 1 Veteran Merc. 1 Champ Merc. Merc. Health and damage boosted 10%. (20 Rank Points)
Tasking:
Scout: Merc stays in a stationary spot, and remains stealth-ed, until a group larger than 5-15 (adjustable through conversation interface), passes in it’s field of vision. It then raises the alarm in Map or Team Chat, and un-stealths. Doesn’t fight back.
Garrison:
-Can be garrisoned in the courtyard(s) of towers or keeps.
-Garrison amount is capped to prevent overcrowding, pending issue, balance would need to be tested.
-Garrisoned troops would be equipped with “exotic” level stats/gear.
-Garrisoned troops yield to those of a higher Mastery Rank, i.e. a regular merc with the 10% health/dmg boost would replace one without, so the best mercs are used, and not blocked by inferior ones.
Siege:
-Merc assigned to siege auto attacks targets assigned, via conversation dialog.
-Merc can be set to target enemy siege, or enemy infantry.
-Merc “mastery” of a siege weapon based on its type. Reg. Merc. Mastery lvl 1, Veteran, Mastery lvl 3, Champion Merc., Mastery lvl 5.
-Mercs, yield, siege engines to human players and remain on standby till the weapon is abandoned.
-Mercs can not be assigned to Battering Rams, or Golems.
Payment:
-Mercenaries require upfront payment.
-Regulars, 30 silver/hr of service. If Merc. disbanded/replaced, the difference is returned to player, rounded to the nearest hour.
-Vets, 50 silver/hr of service. Same as above.
-Champ, 1 gold/hr of service. So if leave your champ Merc out for 8 hours it costs you 8 gold. This will discourage, somewhat, a complete Champ Garrison/Siege Running.
Death:
-Mercenaries that die re-spawn under certain conditions.
-Scouts re-spawn 5 minutes after death.
-Garrison re-spawns once the objective is retaken.
-Siege, automatically transferred to any empty siege on the map, 5 minutes after death. If all siege full, it remains in a queue. Separate queue from players.
Global Restrictions/Rules:
-The number of Mercs on the field is capped to the difference between your force and the largest force on the map +20. i.e. you have 20 players and the largest enemy force has 50 players, you can have 50 Mercs on the field.
The Why: Mercs. will be inferior to human players, and the number of players on a map will go up and down so a +20 cap is for balance and to account for changes in human troops.
-Mercs. that are over the limit are removed from the LEAST valuable PPT locations first, and placed in a holding queue. Every 5-15 minutes. Mercs will be re-added as spots pertaining to their assignment open, and immediately to objectives under attack by forces larger than 5.
The Why: The merc. queue and insta-spawn rules are to prevent a large enemy force from purposefully leaving a map to delete mercs at objectives they want and then rushing back in on an otherwise undefended objectives.
The 5-15 deletion process is to compensate for human players that need to switch maps momentarily to defend objectives that are on the verge of defeat in spite of mercenary presence and then wish to go back to the original map.
(edited by KDXX.9520)