Posted by Retroman 3 years ago (Source)

Dear Albion players,
With Queen, the way territory control is determined changes. Territory ownership is not decided by 5v5s anymore, but instead by Open World Battles.

Goal
Territorial Warfare has always been a big and important part of Albion’s DNA. In the past territory control was fought out purely with GvGs, which mainly allowed a few elite players to participate. While we really liked the highly competitive gameplay of GvGs, we also figured its exclusivity was not good for the game.

Now, with Queen, territory fights will be Open World Fights where anyone can join. So all members of a guild can contribute to the success in territorial warfare. Since this can and will result in very large scale battles in the high end zones we also introduced Disarray and the Smart Cluster Queue to ensure the game becomes less focused on pure player numbers alone.

But we also wanted to keep the highly competitive 5v5 gameplay relevant for a guild’s success. So we introduced the Crystal League, high stakes instanced 5v5 matches. Winning these will also upgrade the tower levels.


Territory Claiming
Claiming an unclaimed territory is not changed. Just go to a tower, pay the silver fee and complete the channel. However, since we will introduce so many new territories at once, the territories will remain unclaimable until season 8 starts. With the season start, towers will become claimable at two major time zones to give as many guilds as possible the chance to claim one.

• Towers will become claimable at:
  
  • 1 February 2020 - 18 UTC - EU primetime clusters
    
  • 2 February 2020 - 1 UTC - NA primetime clusters
    

On Invasion Days the land of Albion will still keep reclaiming its territories. So, all guilds have to re-conquer them on Invasion Days. (like in prior seasons)

Declaring Attacks
Attack declarations are made directly at the enemy territory. In order to declare an attack you need to first take out the Sentry Mage. When the Sentry Mage is defeated, the tower’s defenses are disabled. Now you can go to the tower and declare an attack. The actual fight will happen at the next day at this cluster’s prime time.

• Attack Declarations can be made at any time, independent of a cluster’s prime time.
  
• A territory can be attacked by multiple guilds at once. (they all join the same battle)
  
• Declaring an attack costs 2 million silver
  
• Example:
  
  • An attack declaration is made on Monday at 14 UTC.
    
  • The attacked territory's prime time is 20 UTC.
    
  • The actual attack time will be on Tuesday at 20 UTC.
    

Open World Battle

• The attack happens at the cluster’s prime time.
  
• The battleground is directly at the territory in the open world (not any instance)
  
• Any player can enter the cluster and take part in the fight
  
• As soon as the attack starts, guilds can claim the territory by channeling the tower:
  
  • The channel lasts 30 seconds, but can’t be interrupted by damage (only hard CC interrupts the channel)
    
  • The tower can be channeled by the defending guild to end the attack
    
  • OR by any guild with an attack declaration. (If your guild has no declaration you can’t interact with the tower)
    
  • The first guild to channel the tower wins the fight
    
  • If after 30 minutes no one has channeled the tower, the defender wins by default
    

Territory Benefits
Owning a territory has the following benefits:

• Siphoning Mages which generate Season Points and Siphoned Energy for the guild (Farms now also have Siphoning Mages)
  
• The territory has NPC guards that attack enemy guilds
  
• The tower itself is armed with a devastating lightning beam, providing an fallback position when outnumbered in the open world
  
• Some territories provide farm plots in the open world (Farms)
  

Lastly territories are not meant as a home for a guild, but more as a strategic goal to fight over during guild warfare. Therefore territories ownership should be more easily changed. To provide a home for guilds, we introduced the new hideouts. Territory ownership should be more easily changed.


Tower Upgrades
The territory tower can be upgraded with Crystal League. Crystal League matches can be started from a territory tower. Winning those matches from the tower has following benefits

• Winning a Crystal League match level 4 or higher gives an additional Crystal League Chest for each member of the winning team.
  
• The tier of the chest depends on the won tower level, i.e. T5 Chest for a T5 match, etc
  
• Winning a match of the tower’s level or higher will upgrade the tower by one level Example:
  
  • Winning with a level 3 token on a level 3 tower will upgrade the tower to 4
    
  • Winning with a level 3 token on a level 5 tower, on the other hand, will have no effect
    
• A tower’s level decays over time.
  
  • Losing crystal league matches has no direct influence.
    
  • However If no match is won of at least the current tower level, the tower will lose one level after a number of days. The number of days depends on the tower level. (see the chart below)
    
• The tower upgrade has the following effects:
  
  • Increases the yield for resource gathering for EVERY player in the cluster
    
  • Increases the rate of enchanted resources to spawn in the cluster
    
  • Increases the strength of the territory guards and Sentry Mage
    
  • Siphoning Mages create more energy and season points
    

Tower Level Values



Conclusion
With these two systems we want to find the best synergy between Open World Attacks and accessibility, while still keeping the high stakes and highly competitive 5v5 gameplay.

• Open World Territory Attacks will be the deciding factor in how big a guild’s territory can be
  
• Crystal League Battles will be the factor that decides how high the quality of these areas is
  

And like always we are open for feedback and further improvements in the future.

But for now we are excited to see how you will engage with these new systems in the upcoming season 8!

Cheers,
Retro