Dulrik wrote:
You don't want to take their relic? Awesome! I mean that sincerely. That doesn't mean there is no point to going and attacking the keep. The relic is bait. But is it intended to be bait for the attackers? Or defenders?
I assume some of you like to PK or else you wouldn't be playing a PK-enabled game. By going to raid, defenders are supposed to respond and then you can, you know, PK them. Of course, if you only raid when none of your opponents are around, you are completely missing the point. Which seems to be most everyone.
If I may be so bold... I definitely agree with the idea of baiting people to show up for a fight but I think there might be a better (and maybe easier) way:
First, get rid of guards. Relics, being artifacts of immense magical power, now project a 'shield' around the cabal headquarters that prevents people from breaching the doors. Other cabals have the ability to force another cabal's relic to drop its shielding at a set time (declared in systime and at least 24 hours out, exact time frame to be determined by what is appropriate for SK) so that they can attack the headquarters and try to seize the relic. The defenders are alerted to when their shields will drop. It is then up to the attackers and defenders to grab all of their friends and show up.
Ganking the relic while no one is online isn't even possible with this system since you give the defenders 24+ hours notice before the shields come down. If they don't show up, that is their problem. Since you can't attack while people are offline, you don't need guards there to defend the HQ. Since you don't need guards, you don't have to worry about the balancing nightmare of making them dangerous enough to discourage offline ganking but not so dangerous that they make PvP impossible. Also, since you don't have to balance guards, you can have your headquarters layout be whatever you want.
A few things could be tweaked like just how much advance notice the defenders get. Does the attacking cabal have to exhaust its relic, thereby dropping their own shields, to attack another cabal? If so, does the attack only end when someone's relic is taken? Is there a time limit until the shields come back up on their own? Does a cabal not exhaust its own relic but instead have to buy a really expensive one-time item that can deactivate the defender's shields?
If this system looks familiar it is because you played Shadowbane where losing didn't mean you just had to go get your relic back but meant someone just demolished the city you spent months building.