News Archive/07 19 13

Dominion Tournament Release (BETA Version)
Today we released the BETA version of our new Dominion PvP tournament feature. I'm sure many of you will have questions and concerns.

Answers and details about Dominion can be found in the following forum thread:

http://www.castleageforums.com/cforum/showthread.php?p=2724006#post2724006

Information
note: some of this information has been slightly changed in the mean time, from player suggestions and general balance changes.

Tournament entry/initiation rules are as follows:

-You may enter a Dominion tournament once per day. -The entry fee is 5 favor points (in beta, this will not factor and as a result, rewards will not be awarded). We are charging 5 favor points to balance out the significant rewards found within Dominion. -Dominion tournaments are dynamically built 24/7 on a constant basis. -The game collects opt ins over the course of 1 hour. Once the hour is up, all opted in players are bracketed into 16 man tournament. If the game fails to bracket a player into a tournament, the 5 FP entry fee is refunded (not applicable in beta version) and the player can try to opt in again in the next hour-long cycle. -The tournament overall lasts ~90 minutes from start to finish (assuming you are not eliminated). -You will receive your rewards after the tournament has completed in it's entirety (much like Arena payout). -This feature is currently level locked for players 300 and higher. Changed to 200 currently.

Tournament structure:

-3 bracket matches with one final match. -Each bracket match lasts 15 minutes. -After each match is a 10 minute cool down (of which no battles are fought). -16 players are grouped into 4 separate buckets in bracket 1. The top two players with the most Dominion points progress to bracket 2. -Bracket 2 consists of two, four player buckets. The top two players with the most Dominion points progress to bracket 3. -Bracket 3 consists of two, two player buckets. -Final match takes the top winner (most dominion points) from each bracket 3 battle and proceeds to a 1 vrs 1 format.

Tournament rules:

-Duel/Invasion format to acquire dominion points by using dominion tournament tokens. -600 health for each player. Health refreshes to full at the start of each bracket. Health does not organically regenerate. -Tournament starts with 200/200 Dominion tokens. Each attack takes 1 dominion token. Each bracket recharges a certain amount of Dominion tokens (+50/+25/+25). -Dominion tokens do NOT organically refresh with timers. You are encouraged to conserve and wisely spend your tokens for the duration of the tournament. -Each duel/invasion does around ~8-15 damage per token spent.

Tournament point system:

-Victory vs. higher (or equal) level: +6 dominion points -Victory vs. lower level: +5 -Defeat vs (any): +2 -Killing player (bringing them to 0 health. This also works for the defender if you kill yourself attacking!): +80 -Victory vs. higher (or equal) level (stunned target): +5 -Victory vs. lower level (stunned target): +3 -Defensive victory (passive points): +3 -Victory/Defeat (any case) if YOU are stunned and attacking: -1 (so if you are stunned and losing on your attacks you are brought down to only +1 point per token spent!)

Thought process:

-Players are rewarded for "hitting up". If you are a lower level with more pvp oriented stat allocation, you will earn more points over all for successful duels/invasion.

-Defensively, you can earn a lot of points from players hitting you (as players want to go for the kill shot). It is in the middle ground of the point system.

-Players can still "grind" defeats against available targets to net themselves points (and net defenders points with defensive wins of course!) and "warp" the points so that all participants must spend Dominion tokens to keep pace, as the top two players with the most Dominion points will advance until bracket 3.

-Remember, Dominion tokens do NOT recharge like Arena tokens. Each bracket match will award either +50 or +25 additional points, but that is all you get for the entire duration of the tournament. It is wise to fight conservatively so you will enter the final match with enough tokens to compete, or have better success defeating your opponents in bracket 2 and 3.

-Conversely, players who have little chance of winning the tournament can still warp the Dominion points to fall out of your favor (by grinding defeats against another opponent for example), causing you to spend more Dominion tokens than you may have planned to keep pace to ensure your spot for advancement.

-"The Kill Shot" is worth a significant amount of points! Even if you cannot earn "victory" against an opponent, killing them can still net you a sizable portion of points, further yet warping the points race.

-Even if you are winning against all opponents in your bucket, you still have to remain vigilant to ensure your progression, perhaps spending more dominion tokens than you were prepared to spend.

The rewards:

-Players can earn rewards for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. IN ADDITION they (and players who did NOT earn 1st/2nd/3rd) will ALSO earn a prize allotment for the amount of points they have earned in the tournament.

1st place (at end of tournament) 100% chance of 2x random hero XP potions. 100% chance of 1x hero crystal. 15% chance to double your initial investment into 10 favor points.

2nd place (at end of tournament) 100% chance of 1x random hero XP potions. 100% chance of 1x hero crystal. 10% chance to double your initial investment into 10 favor points.

3rd place (at end of tournament) 100% chance of 1x hero crystal. 5% chance to double your initial investment into 10 favor points.

In addition:

1,500+ Dominion points earned 25% chance of +250 guild coins. 100% chance of +50 guild coins. 100% chance of 2x Dominion Tournament item archive items (ATK item or DEF item).

1,250+ Dominion points earned 20% chance of +210 guild coins. 100% chance of +40 guild coins. 100% chance of 1x Dominion Tournament item archive items (ATK item or DEF item).

1,000+ Dominion points earned 15% chance of +170 guild coins. 100% chance of +30 guild coins. 95% chance of 1x Dominion Tournament item archive items (ATK item or DEF item).

500+ Dominion points earned 10% chance of +170 guild coins. 100% chance of +20 guild coins. 80% chance of 1x Dominion Tournament item archive items (ATK item or DEF item).

0-499 Dominion points earned 100% chance of +10 guild coins. 60% chance of 1x Dominion Tournament item archive items (ATK item or DEF item).

Thought process:

Even with little to no participation, there is a 60% chance to earn an item archive item for the Dominion Archive. This will confer effectively, a 60% chance to earn +1 in ATK or DEF, per day, per tournament. Assuming you did nothing. This is what we consider the bare minimum return for your 5 FP entry.

Otherwise, with a medium amount of participation (all actions confer points in the tournament, ultimately) you will earn guild coins (most of which are the equivlent of a guild battle or more) along with better chance for item archive items.

In addition, earning 1st/2nd/3rd place will confer significantly more rewarding items and resources. There is also the chance to double your initial investment.

In closing:

Please provide your feedback with regards to pvp balancing. The beta testers are to small in number to adequtly create a sufficient system so we have launched Dominion as a beta feature to gauge the experience.