Current system: You decide what node to "plant" on based on the day of the week and Tier of the Node. Tiers are 1-5 with 1 having significant gear caps and 5 having no caps. Once you choose, you place "annexes" depending on the Tier (Tier 1 has just barricades, supply depot, flag factory but Tier 5 has flame towers, hwachas, recovery centers etc)

So placing annexes can take time. Placing a fort just takes time. You have to choose good terrain. You don't want to be below a cliff because opponents will take the higher ground and wreak you. You don't want to plant on an island because you'll be a sitting duck. Even after a fort spot is chosen you have the issue of designing annex placement

Some nodes are easier to plant on than others. Some are a mountainous or oceanic mess and it's mind melting trying to find a decent defendable position

While planting you run the risk of being SEEN. There is gear you can wear to disguise your identity and cover up your guild affiliation that's recommended. But if you are seen on the server with a war about to start then it is assumed you are participating

WHICH LEEEEEAAAAAAADS TO Diplomacy

Making alliances, ceasefire agreements and sucking up to bigger guilds so you last longer in the fight. Most of the time, this leads to zerging the less diplomatic savvy guilds

NEW SYSTEM HOWEVER.

You choose a region, you are then RNG'd onto a node. Let's say a region has 5 potential nodes. Each node has a unique timer. 20 min is the shortest, 30 min, 40 min, 50, and 60 min

20 min finishes first! All of this in concurrent btw

There is one fort and you fight over it against the other guilds that were RNG'd to be your opponents

Last hit gets the fort

So say you are on the 20 min node. You are guild X you are fighting Y and Z

Z gets the fort because they took the last of its hp and defended it after they claimed it, preventing the hp from dropping to 0 again

Y and X are then RNG'd onto fights that are still going. Remember one node is 20 min and the others are a bit longer. Let's say X ends up on the 40 min node.

Well 20 min have already passed so now X has joined the fight against A and B guilds and there are 20 min remaining

This time A wins the fort! So X and B are now moved to the final 60 min node. Since 40 min have passed, there are still 20 min to go

So now X and B are fighting J and K and oh look, Y is back. They must have failed to get the fort when they got RNG'd to the 30 min node

Anyways so it's supposed to SHAKE THINGS UP with diplomacy and make alliances and ceasefires less viable and toxic

Because you are RNG'd to a node and then RNG'd after each node finishes its timer and get sort of tossed around the map, it's harder to form a strat

........ But not impossible

Basically, during the Championship, Korea got butt hurt because it became a 3v1 because everyone ganged up against them because they are just "better" in theory

So they made everyone rematch lol

And then it became 2v2 which ALSO meant more zerging but 2 from each region vs the other 2 from another region

So Korea was STILL BUTTHURT get overyourselvesssssssssssssssssss

And now they are turning the whole system on its head to try and fix the alliance issues

But here's the real scenario I see

Major alliances will agree to ceasefires and cooperation ANYWAY. We don't need to be at war to speak to each other. So I see a major alliance agreeing to "Hey, if we are on a node together, we zerg together and coin toss the win"

So it's a "situational" alliance that is upheld whether they are on a battlefield together or not

Now picture that but an alliance of 10 different guilds vs an alliance of 5 guilds

Do you see how this could be a problem even with this new topsy turvy method they are proposing?

Yes, it's RNG and you don't know who you are fighting until you waltz in but as soon as you identify your competition, that pre-existing agreement is already in place because it was pre-arranged!

So newer guilds are still out of the loop, still at a disadvantage because that diplomacy is all behind closed doors and discords

And the actual fights will be a smash ook ook monke brain race to the finish with scripts the new guilds can't see

I'm not upset by the change. I appreciate the attempt to get rid of scripts but honestly, instead of dreading alliances, they should just embrace the system players insist on having and making it streamlined and regulated within their own system

In the 2 years of the guild and our NW efforts, they have changed the system 5 times and we have had to relearn their mechanics each time and as a filthy casual in charge of a sometimes more-than-casual army I am exhausted