Overview
The goal of the Realm War System is to make the frontier feel like an interconnected war rather than a collection of independent keeps and objectives. The system removes some of the more cumbersome elements of the existing siege infrastructure and replaces them with a simpler, more dynamic system where keep ownership, supply camps, scouting outposts, and relic strength all directly influence one another, and allow groups of all sizes to meaningfully participate.
Supply Camps
Supply Camps determine siege damage. Control of the Supply Camp dynamically modifies siege damage against the associated keep:
- Attacker controls the Supply Camp: attacker receives a siege damage advantage
- Defender controls the Supply Camp: defender receives a reduction in siege damage received
- The modifier is effectively halved or doubled depending on which side controls the camp. The important principle is that the bonus always benefits the realm that owns the objective.
Siege Merchants will be placed at Supply Camps that offer valuable siege equipment for an upcoming keep take.
This creates an additional layer to keep warfare:
If you want to take the keep, you should first consider taking the supply camp.
And conversely:
If your keep is under attack, defending the surrounding supply infrastructure becomes part of defending the keep.
Scouting Outposts
Scouting Outposts work similarly, but affect keep defenses. Control of the associated Scouting Outpost will dynamically modify the keep's guard spawn rate:
- Defender controls the Outpost: increased guard spawn rate
- Attacker controls the Outpost: reduced guard spawn rate
Scouting Outposts also provide intelligence about nearby enemies in a zone:
- After claiming an outpost, right-click it to receive a report of nearby enemy activity
- You can only see information about other groups equal to or greater than your current group size
- Capturing a Scouting Outpost will also grant all capturing players a 175% speed buff
Exposed Keeps
A keep is considered Exposed when it represents an active point of vulnerability in the realm war.
A keep is Exposed if:
- It is adjacent to an enemy-owned keep
- It is located in an enemy frontier
- It is the keep closest to the enemy portal keeps (for example, if Hibernia owns all of its home keeps, Dun Crauchon will default to the “exposed” keep).
Several existing systems will now be tied to the Exposed status:
- Reforging can only be performed at keeps that are currently Exposed.
- Home Realm Porting will automatically send players to the furthest Exposed keep that is not currently under siege. Read more about how Home Realm Porting works here.
This should naturally push players toward the active frontier rather than allowing everyone to conveniently port deep into completely safe territory.
The result should be a much more organic RvR flow.
Relics & Keep Ownership
The Realm War System introduces a few mechanics to encourage home realm and relic defense:
- Enemy-realm keeps do not count toward your relic bonus unless your realm owns all of its home-realm keeps. The system therefore rewards actually securing your realm before being able to fully capitalize on territorial conquest.
- Relic bonuses no longer decay.
- Relic bonuses are affected by the number of keeps your realm owns
This makes relic strength a reflection of the current state of the Realm War rather than a temporary timer-based reward.
Realm War Participation
Capturing or defending a Supply Camp or Scouting Outpost generates Contribution Points, distributed among players who participated in the engagement.
When the associated keep is under siege, participation in these objectives also contributes to the keep's RP pool and makes participating players eligible for siege RP rewards.
This allows players to contribute to a keep siege without being physically present at the keep. Fighting to secure the supply lines or scouting network supporting an active siege counts as siege participation.
Note: contribution points are drastically reduced beyond realm rank 5.