I recently decided to go towering for old times sake, and within minutes realized how bad it was and just quit. It's not so much the towering concept or any of the functions of it, it's just the insanely large amounts of players. It really affects the gameplay negatively, considering it's just huge clusters of players swinging swords randomly, where's the skill?

Could there possibly be a remaking of the levels to go with the new Guild system?  

That'd be k00l  

Doo et  

wait about a month and try again  

Honestly I hope they make it quicker to run into combat when you die, like MoD, not like sardons, castle, swamp. I also hope they actually change towering completely to make it more action packed, and make it hard so that guilds are all fighting to get 3-4 hours a day, rather then having guilds hold a tower 20-24+ hours a day. Hope they CHANGE "allies" so that allies still hit each other, but can talk in chat/not talk in chat (leaders option). Also I hope there are penalties to kicking members, to stop the kicking and recruiting issue. With that, they can raise the guild member limit to like 50 or 75. Then going back to the new towering idea, maybe they can make it so that there is a door like in era, with 50 health, except there is only 1-3 doors per tower, and guilds can use that to stop people from coming in pking them by the door, but once the doors are broken the flag only has 10-30 health, so that towers need to be actively watched. on top of that i think there should only be 2-3 towers.  

Qes your ideas are good but how abou 5 towers  

To be honest @ qes, the spawn for castle could just be moved in a closer room rather than outside on a damn bridge. I like swamps time it takes to get back to the flag but itd be cool to implement a swampy biome related floor that slows down players that walk on it. As for DeadWoods tower, the travelling is a bit too much but what really bothers me is the thin stairs we have to take, those need tp be widened so many players can go in at once.

Id keep these towers and introduce a new tower where three entrances or two would be available so the guild would have to defend in a more strategic way.  

Posted by Alexmo

Qes your ideas are good but how abou 5 towers

wait editing  

Posted by Alexmo

Qes your ideas are good but how abou 5 towers

Okay so honest to god i think this system would make PK very exciting and competitive. Assuming allies will be removed or changed and guild capacity will become larger....
The Graal PK Population usually allows for there to be 5-7 BIG Active PK guilds at one time. With this said, There are 5 towers running at once.
These big 5 tower guilds have an easy time holding the 5 TOWERS for 12-24 hours STRAIGHT which means theres a problem, logging on to recruit people to afk at a fort, is sad and not a skill.
This issue is because of the tower system which is composed of, tower lay out, and tower amount
Lets look at all of the CURRENT towers layout, we notice that castle and swamp and sardons has a HUGE run to the flag room, boring.
Mod, Has a short run to the flag room, has opposing teams swamp points meeting in the middle, the only critique I have about Mod, is that I think when they meet in the middle, there should be a bigger middle. Then the enterance to the flag room should have a 50/50 door that the people can defend. Then once that is broken, it should take 10 seconds to come back. After that, the Flag room should be about the same size (because the middle room would be the main PK area UNTIL the door is broken) then there would be a 20/20 flag because once that door is broken, it should be game over with little chance of holding it. (which is why that middle area would be such a hectic PK area)

Now this formula can obviously be slightly changed, but the point is
- a QUICK 3 second run for BOTH the holders AND the attackers to meet in the MIDDLE. This creates a great PK area.
- doors that give tower holders a chance to hold people back, but lower health doors so that they have to be constantly PKing
- lower flag health because doors obviously have some effect.

Now lets look at the tower amount:
As i said earlier, 5 towers is too much. it allows there to be a huge spread of where players are PKing, to the point that there are only 20-50 players per tower. and 10-30 of them are the ones holding the fort. BORING.

They should turn existing towers that CANNOT/SHOULD NOT be fixed- Mainly just Castle and Sardons because those are land marks, into a "sight to see", make it look abandoned and run down, still PK-able but.. no flag/fort anymore.
As for the other current towers, they should be tweaked to the new layout to make it a 3 second run from spawn to the "big/medium sized middle meeting ground", given a door to stop them from reaching flag, and a low health flag with a medium sized flag room.

Anyways continuing my tower amount
LANDMARK TOWERS- Sardons, no function to my new "tower system." WHY- because sardons involve too much running and less PKing, but they are amazing parts of graals history and to be honest should not be deleted or changed for the sake of having them on the map for some purpose.
Completely deleted towers- Deadwood, its just an awful tower to be honest. Not good for PK. Put something else cool there lmfao.
Edited towers-
Mod- bigger middle meeting ground, 20/20 door.
Swamp- delete whole entire first level when you enter the building, including the pot room, and the grassy straight aways, REPLACE that with a quick 3 second run FOR the attackers AND the defenders, to some type of middle ground area with a 50/50 door leading to a 20/20 flag.
Destiny-- make it a quicker run, and add a 50/50 door. The Sardons/destiny traps are a little much and aren’t really necessary tbh, even though they are cool, I would rather them add these type of things to hard quests that we need to dodge to get past, not add it to a PK thing. IF people disagree, fine keep them, but the run should be shorter and should lead to a medium sized PK room with one entrance/50/50 door.
Castle Castle is such a classic place. but to be honest the only thing I would change, is adding a door, making the hallways wider but LESS long. (basically shifting the whole level to make it shorter but wider) and making the attackers spawn near the “PK/Spar/BK” statues. Along with the wider hallway that leaves more room for PK, I would add a door 50/50 and make the flag 20/20.

Now with this update, there are 4 towers. At one time there are usually 5-7 HUGE active tower guilds. But with that said, they are active throughout different times during the day. Assuming the new leaderboard/rewards system involves hours, it should be HARDER for guilds to hold forts for a LONG time.
These 4 towers should run on a SCHEDULE. When clicking the menu there should be a “Fort” button that shows you the TIMER for EACH fort.
“Forts:”
Castle: Active for the next 00:59 minutes
Destiny: Active for the next 00:59 minutes
Mod: Starts 00:59 minutes
Swamp: Starts 00:59 minutes
With this System, there are 2 towers running, while the other two can NOT be “held” or “taken” until the timer changes. then the forts switch. This would change every hour. What this would do is, make it impossible to hold a fort for OVER an hour straight. You would have to run to the next fort to take it. This would make PKing more active as forts switched and more concentration so many guilds are attacking on the same two forts at once.

Dis agree? Okay maybe you disagree but this system would totally make PKing more intense and active.
Also, If you want to keep sardons/deadwood then make the RUN shorter and add a Middle ground PK area before the Flag room.and then my Fort Schedule can be tweaked to look like this
Castle: Active for the next 00:59 minutes
Destiny: Active for the next 00:59 minutes
Mod: Starts 00:59 minutes
Swamp: Starts 00:59 minutes
Sardons: Starts 01:59 h:m's
DeadWood Starts 01:59h:m's

Posted by Livid

To be honest @ qes, the spawn for castle could just be moved in a closer room rather than outside on a damn bridge. I like swamps time it takes to get back to the flag but itd be cool to implement a swampy biome related floor that slows down players that walk on it. As for DeadWoods tower, the travelling is a bit too much but what really bothers me is the thin stairs we have to take, those need tp be widened so many players can go in at once.

Id keep these towers and ontroduce a new tower where three entrances or two would be available so the guild would have to defend in a more strategic way.

The issue with towering is based on there being too many forts, there aren't enough people to keep all of these forts active at once. The other issue with forts is their level layout/distance to the "meeting point" (area where the defenders and attackers first meet)
MoD probably has the best layout for PKing. Issue is, the "middle meeting area in Mod" is a small narrow straight square with a stare case in the middle. Every tower should have a good placed middle point, like MoD except it should be slightly larger to give room for PK. Then a 50/50 door to create something specific to defend. Then the flag should be 20/20 because once that door is broken, guilds can rush in to take it quickly.
Adding multiple entrances is fine, as long as they all lead to the same point and all have the same short distance to that middle meeting ground for PK. (before the flag room)  

sorry will read when I get home xd  

Posted by qes

Okay so honest to god i think this system would make PK very exciting and competitive. Assuming allies will be removed or changed and guild capacity will become larger....
The Graal PK Population usually allows for there to be 5-7 BIG Active PK guilds at one time. With this said, There are 5 towers running at once.
These big 5 tower guilds have an easy time holding the 5 TOWERS for 12-24 hours STRAIGHT which means theres a problem, logging on to recruit people to afk at a fort, is sad and not a skill.
This issue is because of the tower system which is composed of, tower lay out, and tower amount
Lets look at all of the CURRENT towers layout, we notice that castle and swamp and sardons has a HUGE run to the flag room, boring.
Mod, Has a short run to the flag room, has opposing teams swamp points meeting in the middle, the only critique I have about Mod, is that I think when they meet in the middle, there should be a bigger middle. Then the enterance to the flag room should have a 50/50 door that the people can defend. Then once that is broken, it should take 10 seconds to come back. After that, the Flag room should be about the same size (because the middle room would be the main PK area UNTIL the door is broken) then there would be a 20/20 flag because once that door is broken, it should be game over with little chance of holding it. (which is why that middle area would be such a hectic PK area)

Now this formula can obviously be slightly changed, but the point is
- a QUICK 3 second run for BOTH the holders AND the attackers to meet in the MIDDLE. This creates a great PK area.
- doors that give tower holders a chance to hold people back, but lower health doors so that they have to be constantly PKing
- lower flag health because doors obviously have some effect.

Now lets look at the tower amount:
As i said earlier, 5 towers is too much. it allows there to be a huge spread of where players are PKing, to the point that there are only 20-50 players per tower. and 10-30 of them are the ones holding the fort. BORING.

They should turn existing towers that CANNOT/SHOULD NOT be fixed- Mainly just Castle and Sardons because those are land marks, into a "sight to see", make it look abandoned and run down, still PK-able but.. no flag/fort anymore.
As for the other current towers, they should be tweaked to the new layout to make it a 3 second run from spawn to the "big/medium sized middle meeting ground", given a door to stop them from reaching flag, and a low health flag with a medium sized flag room.

Anyways continuing my tower amount
LANDMARK TOWERS- Sardons, no function to my new "tower system." WHY- because sardons involve too much running and less PKing, but they are amazing parts of graals history and to be honest should not be deleted or changed for the sake of having them on the map for some purpose.
Completely deleted towers- Deadwood, its just an awful tower to be honest. Not good for PK. Put something else cool there lmfao.
Edited towers-
Mod- bigger middle meeting ground, 20/20 door.
Swamp- delete whole entire first level when you enter the building, including the pot room, and the grassy straight aways, REPLACE that with a quick 3 second run FOR the attackers AND the defenders, to some type of middle ground area with a 50/50 door leading to a 20/20 flag.
Destiny-- make it a quicker run, and add a 50/50 door. The Sardons/destiny traps are a little much and aren’t really necessary tbh, even though they are cool, I would rather them add these type of things to hard quests that we need to dodge to get past, not add it to a PK thing. IF people disagree, fine keep them, but the run should be shorter and should lead to a medium sized PK room with one entrance/50/50 door.
Castle Castle is such a classic place. but to be honest the only thing I would change, is adding a door, making the hallways wider but LESS long. (basically shifting the whole level to make it shorter but wider) and making the attackers spawn near the “PK/Spar/BK” statues. Along with the wider hallway that leaves more room for PK, I would add a door 50/50 and make the flag 20/20.

Now with this update, there are 4 towers. At one time there are usually 5-7 HUGE active tower guilds. But with that said, they are active throughout different times during the day. Assuming the new leaderboard/rewards system involves hours, it should be HARDER for guilds to hold forts for a LONG time.
These 4 towers should run on a SCHEDULE. When clicking the menu there should be a “Fort” button that shows you the TIMER for EACH fort.
“Forts:”
Castle: Active for the next 00:59 minutes
Destiny: Active for the next 00:59 minutes
Mod: Starts 00:59 minutes
Swamp: Starts 00:59 minutes
With this System, there are 2 towers running, while the other two can NOT be “held” or “taken” until the timer changes. then the forts switch. This would change every hour. What this would do is, make it impossible to hold a fort for OVER an hour straight. You would have to run to the next fort to take it. This would make PKing more active as forts switched and more concentration so many guilds are attacking on the same two forts at once.

Dis agree? Okay maybe you disagree but this system would totally make PKing more intense and active.
Also, If you want to keep sardons/deadwood then make the RUN shorter and add a Middle ground PK area before the Flag room.and then my Fort Schedule can be tweaked to look like this
Castle: Active for the next 00:59 minutes
Destiny: Active for the next 00:59 minutes
Mod: Starts 00:59 minutes
Swamp: Starts 00:59 minutes
Sardons: Starts 01:59 h:m's
DeadWood Starts 01:59h:m's



The issue with towering is based on there being too many forts, there aren't enough people to keep all of these forts active at once. The other issue with forts is their level layout/distance to the "meeting point" (area where the defenders and attackers first meet)
MoD probably has the best layout for PKing. Issue is, the "middle meeting area in Mod" is a small narrow straight square with a stare case in the middle. Every tower should have a good placed middle point, like MoD except it should be slightly larger to give room for PK. Then a 50/50 door to create something specific to defend. Then the flag should be 20/20 because once that door is broken, guilds can rush in to take it quickly.
Adding multiple entrances is fine, as long as they all lead to the same point and all have the same short distance to that middle meeting ground for PK. (before the flag room)

Tbh, I didn't read all of what you said, because I don't have the time to right now. But i towering should be for towering guilds, imo changes shouldnt be made for pkers. Besides, I think you're looking for far too uniform of towers. I love the diversity right now, it makes for a different Pking experience at each place.

no tower timers please, that system is wonky and is just going to make a massive mob in whichever towers are available.

Other then that, I would appreciate if you did a TL;DR, because a lot of what you said is confusing(at least for me)  

Posted by Areo

Tbh, I didn't read all of what you said, because I don't have the time to right now. But i towering should be for towering guilds, imo changes shouldnt be made for pkers. Besides, I think you're looking for far too uniform of towers. I love the diversity right now, it makes for a different Pking experience at each place.

no tower timers please, that system is wonky and is just going to make a massive mob in whichever towers are available.

Other then that, I would appreciate if you did a TL;DR, because a lot of what you said is confusing(at least for me)

wait what? Read what I wrote please lol. I didn't say anything about making this about PKers and NOT towerers. Its just NOW you can go into any tower, besides maybe MoD, and it would be DEAD, only 10-15 afkish people holding the fort.
(towers is PK while holding a fort,when i say PKers i meant attackers/defenders killing each other
The system I made was the make the towers more crowded/Make the rooms BEFORE the flag room bigger, with a 50HP door to stop people from coming in.
If you read what I wrote I explained how I want the levels of each tower to change, and how i want to decrease the amount of towers to 2 at one time.
The system of 2 hours at one time is great, means more people attacking, making it harder to hold. Also, once the hour is over, the tower would kick everyone out and they would all have to run to the next 2 towers that are open. 24 activity, never a dull moment
anyways don't read this, just read what i wrote before more carefully.  

Posted by qes

The issue with towering is based on there being too many forts, there aren't enough people to keep all of these forts active at once. The other issue with forts is their level layout/distance to the "meeting point" (area where the defenders and attackers first meet)
MoD probably has the best layout for PKing. Issue is, the "middle meeting area in Mod" is a small narrow straight square with a stare case in the middle. Every tower should have a good placed middle point, like MoD except it should be slightly larger to give room for PK. Then a 50/50 door to create something specific to defend. Then the flag should be 20/20 because once that door is broken, guilds can rush in to take it quickly.
Adding multiple entrances is fine, as long as they all lead to the same point and all have the same short distance to that middle meeting ground for PK. (before the flag room)

I designed the MoD downstairs that was the original version as far as iClassic goes. It used to have a narrow staircase until someone made a gripe about it. That narrow staircase was extremely intentional when I made that level. I imagine other towers have similar designs because they just wanted to create a minor variation of MoD.

The narrow staircase was intended to serve as a bottleneck. The reason for that was because it would give an advantage to the defending guild. However, it was also intended for all hell to break loose if any attacker broke that bottleneck.

The maximum flag health was intended to be much lower. The reason for this was so the defending guild would have to quickly address a breach in that bottleneck.

The respawn points were intended to make it easier to shift the balance once the flag had changed ownership. That would enable the new defenders to get to the bottleneck point more quickly than the previous defenders. It certainly was not intended to make it easier to defend the bottleneck, which is how I think most people would interpret it without background knowledge into the design history.

It was also intended that the towers would require the defending guild to hold the flag for a specific amount of time tow win (and be awarded a tower victory). I think it was two minutes. And then it would take actually take about 20 minutes for any guild to win because once you broke the bottleneck, taking the flag wasn't particularly difficult. Under the current conditions, it could take a lot longer than that.

Unfortunately, after my hand in that, and before iClassic was born, someone decided to revert back to the hold-forever version of towering that goes on today. It was likely reverted because the system I designed wasn't like the previous towering system, and some people had opinions that Classic towering should be exactly like it was 2000. I doubt anyone put gameplay aspects above nostalgia in that decision. They took out the victory timer, upped the flag health, made the flag defenders persistent (no victories, just ownership) in order to make it consistent with how towering had previously operated. They kept the bottleneck and the respawn points, which wasn't consistent with how towering had previously operated. Now you've got artifacts of both systems that don't particularly work well together.  

Can't wait for the New Guild System  

Yea, whatever system is added, it needs to make it really hard for guilds to hold towers, you need to be actively awake the whole time.
Guild forts should be switching between guilds every 15 minutes to be honest