Winter Relic Event 2011 MVP

[Tsavong]

I was planning to reply to this sooner just didn’t get around to it being busy at work and lazy when I was not.

I think NC & TC did a good job keeping an almost constant attack on Garagoth for most of the event I wanted to get out to attack but there were always people with big glowing auras running in the opposite direction.

RK did a good job attacking everyone red it seems and I definitely remember Kaletta running around defending & raiding.

Warlock {GODS}

Warlock is awesome I’ll give you that

Twig has more.. and would love to hear monkeys view, or the Masl toon who actually stole it and died at the gates (bugging relic ).. etc

I was the MA toon that died at the gates my little rogue for feared and ran into a corner and tried to hide by kissing the cliff.

[burrahobbit]

I'd like to take this opportunity to vote myself MVP for NC. I wasnt there for the event but I still feel that I deserve to win. It will be a travesty of injustice if Burrahobbit doesnt receive the MVP award. I pretended to play while I was at work during the times of the event and racked up an amazing 200,000 imaginary caps and 593,000 imaginary pk's in the first heat alone.

Yeah, I'm probably the greatest imaginary player ever. Autograph requests welcome.

[Shamedmonkey]

If I give you my address, will you mail me one?

[DM_Sultan]

I'm close to having a complete list compiled. There will be multiple winners from every faction. I will post more once I have a complete list. Please continue posting those whom you recall as being major (real) contributors to the frey.

Sultan

[Daral0085]

I played nearly the whole event on marble lady, my bard/sd, and a bit of time on my dragon in the second round.

The first round was definitely the most contested of the three. My experience in the last two rounds was very simple. I raided LA with an assistant or two (Elda, Opie/Monkey respectively), grabbed that relic and ran it on home. I only ever had to fight one opponent, who was fairly quickly stomped. It seems like most of the fighting each round was over AO.

I also went to hit RK in I think both rounds 2 and 3. In round 2 (or was it 3?), MASL got to RK first, but the defenders were able to hold them off until TNC arrived with all the cavalry and killed all the surviving defenders and secured the relic. I don't remember anyone fighting above average skillwise.

I spent a lot of time running around in backwoods maps avoiding defenders, which meant that I didn't see much action these two rounds. The rest of the time I was on defense, and we were barely raided at all. Twig did well on defense, but I do not believe he was very challenged either.

In contrast, the first round was total pandemonium. We had to fight like crazy for the AO relic because it kept crashing out of our hands. And it bugged up twice without a corresponding server crash, which delayed us even more. After all that, we spent the remainder of the event raiding MA, since they were 1 up on us. This was pretty frustrating, our group was not coherent and MASL harassed well. We could have done a lot of things better, but it's all water under the bridge now.

The person who annoyed me most is probably that listener bard/pm, Nocturne MADD I believe. It was very funny running in circles trying to avoid this guy while waiting for the rest of my team to show up or tap the cradle or something. One of the AAs was trying to chase me down too, was that Archie Bunker? I don't remember. But it was hilarious because the AA scroll buffs TS/CC, and I have dispels so I'm busy running around dispelling his scrolls and he's busy scrolling, meanwhile I have this bard/PM chasing me trying to beat me to death with a whip, and I can't dispel him but he can only melee me. While the AA I can dispel, but he has a ranged attack so I can't run away from him. So it gets pretty comical. And then there's maybe a fighter too, for good measure, so I have to stay hipsed to avoid the non-spotters, cast dispels to get the AA, and then unhips to run away from the PM, meanwhile I'm pillar dodging to break line of sight while camping the MA cradle, so you can see how complicated this gets. What was hilarious is that at the very end, my team shows up and I actually do grab the MA relic, and then silence myself so the bard can't get me and I just run like hell out of there (while hipsed of course). There were NPCs blocking the door out and I can't unhips because there are PC defenders too, so I had to call for someone to come kill the damn golems before I could get out of there. It is pretty funny in hindsight, but I was annoyed at the time cause who knows when that AA would show up again and clobber me.

Big thanks to KOS-MOS for harassing MA while we grabbed all the other relics in second heat. I also think Hemerroid did fairly well, as can be expected of any rogue/SD: hard to kill and can dish out tons of damage.

[Bargeld]

Wish we had a kill counter and a DB we could generate reports from. We could see overall raw kills from high to low, relic grabs... even who killed any specific person the most

I think it was an all around good brawl. No one really got discouraged or angry enough to rage quit or anything, so that's a good thing. I do believe the defenders in NC's (and a lesser amount of times, TC's) home ground didn't get as much action or glory as some of the others. I would bet there was some rotation in there, to let others play and defend and harass on their whim.

I do have 2 critical points as well... Since I was SL defending MA, I was limited as far as my toon selection. I'm sure the TC and AO (a couple of times) would have run into the same problem. I propose that during relic events, the rule regarding swapping defenders during defense should be discarded. This should have no bearing on the rule regarding drops to allied faction. I DO believe that everyone is required to return relics to your home cradle. Mainly because the transportation of it is lengthy and you are required to have an ally who is willing to break faction, raid, then get escorted back to the allied faction for the cap. It, at least, prevents players from using junk toons for this type of transport and ties up a decent toon away from the main defense. This has always resulted in additional strategy and gameplay that I think all sides enjoy. Not being able to swap toons to defend the chosen allied city is just plain limiting and does not encourage strategic toon selection. I think the same should be true with regards to raiding. If you happen to chose the wrong raider out of the gates (based on an enemy's defenses) you have to wait the 30 as well... also, uninspiring and counter-productive to battle and strategy.

Unfortunately, all of that still goes to the wind when it boils down to a numbers game; which it always has. I enjoy the relic events and have played in many in the past. The PvP is great, and that is the main reason people attend. I've earned MVP awards a few times before and, in comparison this time around, I think there were a lot of players out there that should earn MVPs, and I like that more people will get awarded. As far as winning the event and captures... it will always be a numbers game.

PS: I think the spectating DMs should determine the MVPs. Mark down notable stuff as it occurs, its much harder for the players to go from heat to heat and remember this kinda stuff I think that additional community contribution should then be taken into consideration as well. Voting is so black and white, and I think I know the crowd here well enough that they would prefer to see someone recount the tales of battles as opposed to a playername shout-out. We danced and bled for you oh mighty gods, just tell us who wins the stuff!

PSS: If we had a DB of kills and stuff, the MVP criteria could be predetermined and allow for multiple types of MVP awards. Automechanically.

[Daral0085]

Not being able to swap toons to defend the chosen allied city is just plain limiting and does not encourage strategic toon selection.

So, there are two sides to this issue. The first, which you didn't mention, is faction selection. I think it adds a nice strategic element when you are forced to defend with a given faction, because as you note, it severely limits your off-faction defending. This means that you have to select your defending faction for not just its general terrain defensibility, but also for the available toons (and perhaps more generally, available builds) that come with that faction. MA is chosen not just because it's good terrain, but because it comes with the mighty PM raider. Restricting SL defenders seems like a natural handicap. That said, I'm not necessarily opposed to your request, but I don't see it as "just plain limiting". I see it as "limiting with strategy", which is a common theme in NS4 (factions are by their very nature limiting, except for AO which gets everything).

The second side, which you do mention, is toon selection once you are committed to playing off-faction. I don't see this as limiting strategy, but I do see it as changing strategy. Instead of picking specialist toons, it forces you to play much more generally, since you can't swap out. But even here, this is only a factor for people who don't build in both factions. Many people in TNC do, so for us I don't see this as being a critical issue. Even you DDs can play MADDs, if you so desire.

[Monkey]

The first round was definitely the most contested of the three.

The first round ended up being a tie. Our faction leaders were happy with that and didn't want us to take relics from the MA cradle because we would risk dropping them and having them re-capped by MA to increase their score. The result was that we were allowed to fight and kill in and around Garagoth all we wanted, but never actually got to try and run their relics home.

IMO, it would be better if simply the total number of relics held in each cradle at the end of the event was the factor that would determine the winners. That would keep the factions fighting and raiding without fear of giving the other side extra points with an unsuccessful raid. An alliance could also make it more interesting by trying to take both 1st and 2nd place, splitting relics between factions.

The second and third rounds were more fun. Because the outcome was not in doubt it was ok to try and get the remaining relics out of MA (or at least the MA relic). That resulted in much more heated battles.

[Tsavong]

So what you are saying is that first you let us keep the relics and second you find it more fun when the event is one sided?

[Rufio]

I think the problem was with recaps. You can score so many points so quickly with recaps that it only makes sense to capture a relic if you are almost certain to be able to escape with it.

I think we were being overly cautious the first round because we were having a bit of a hard time communicating who was our runner and getting them in a position to safely bring out a relic (evidenced when a TC player grabbed a relic that an NC runner was supposed to grab). It was possible to be aggressive if the first relic to come out was the MA relic since MA didn't get recap points for their own relic, but we weren't aggressive enough with that one again due to communication breakdown. I think it was just easier to be cautious with that one so everyone knew that we had to be cautious about all the other relics.

I wasn't there for the second heat, but I know the third heat we pretty much just let people do whatever they wanted because it was so hard getting everyone organized, and at that point we didn't really need to be that organized to keep you all occupied enough to prevent a full assault on Daeron.

I agree with monkey that it might be better if your score was just the amount of relics in your cradle at the end of the heat. It would encourage attackers to attempt relic captures more freely, which would make fighting much more intense and meaningful after the initial captures have been made. It would be possible to win the event after the second heat, but even now a big lead going into the third heat assures victory if you don't allow the other side to get any recapture points.

[Monkey]

So what you are saying is that first you let us keep the relics and second you find it more fun when the event is one sided?

Not sure how you get that from what I said...

The 2nd and 3rd rounds were fun because we actually got to try and steal relics against a valiant defense put up by MASL. Running around just killing and getting killed without any significant objective in the 1st round wasn't very interesting to me.

The lopsidedness itself was a downer. Granted, many of the TC/NC players were newbies, playing on sub-40s or playing poorly on poorly geared, poorly built toons. They were not very helpful in the big picture, but raising them repeatedly while avoiding their killers was challenging at least.

If the scoring could have been set up with rewards for 1st and 2nd places we would have been encouraged to split the relics between TC and NC, which would have resulted in even more wide open and challenging play. MA would have had a much better chance at first place while TC and NC tried to secure both 1st and 2nd places.

[Rufio]

I'd say that in the first heat there was much more of an objective. We were down and needed captures to close the score gap. We were just so worried about not letting MA extend their lead with recaptures that we weren't letting anyone grab a relic until we felt safe. I think we took too long to get our runners ready and to commit to capturing anything, which is why it may have felt pointless, but there was a lot more on the line.

I personally had a lot more fun the first heat than the 3rd heat. There was more strategy and organization. I missed the 2nd, but the 3rd heat was pretty much just letting people do what they wanted because there was less consequence. The disorganized groups weren't even a threat to the MA cradle, so MA wasn't ever going to get any recaptures when we couldn't even get a group organized enough clear out the npc defenders. If the raiding groups had started getting close to stealing relics, it would have gone back to how the first heat felt.

[Shadowalker]

First event we started with a skeleton crew. Not enough for a multi toon attack on more than one cradle. But we deployed them wisely, allowing for no longer needed raiders at one cradle, to assist at others that were still on going.

Still cherish the AO relic scramble. Good PvP but even better chaos, which to me is more memerable. By the end of phase one we had a few non guilded players on board, but nothing like the numbers in phase 2 n 3.

Twig gets the credit for our non-guilded showing. The lil bugger spent a lot of non event and event time making sure everyone knew the rules and when next phase begins. With the paitence to make sure all thier in event queeries were answered and see that they had fun, even when assigned to scout duty.

This was the first event without nearly all our "old skool Vets"*. We still had supreme players, but tactics and cordination was in new hands this time. Expect a much bloodier event next time.


*prewipe players

[Tsavong]

Not sure how you get that from what I said...

Ye I was reading the worst out of it.

I have to say I enjoyed the third heat how ever I could not stay awake for the whole of the first head I expect I would have enjoyed the second half of it fair bit too.

[Glory07]

As far as NC toons active in play, my monk Glory Daze was the relic runner uncatchable. Early in each event she was there to grab and run. What was funny was usually a MADD was there to clear the temple and activate the relic. With the help of diversions, Daze was able to just walk up and grab from the holder ready to release. Or stun a MADD holding a relic and pick it up and ran with it. She was chased, but I wasn't worried. Once I ran thru the middle of a battle outside Beryn and kept going. Daze also ran with the the stolen relic outside Avendale.

My bard, Gloriosity spent the other hours mostly to cast. Outside Garagoth Gloriosity was lucky to kill a few reds, but most pvp was done by our party, over and over again.