Fixing Sunnyglade Valley

[Rurin]

This custom bg is universally unliked and as it is now, it requires significant changes. I want to present the differences between Sunnyglade and WSG/AB that make it unfit as a small-scale bg right now.

1) WSG/AB are simple concepts on complicated maps. Sunnyglade is a complicated concept on a simple map.

WSG is grab the flag, carry it to base. Only one person needs to do it. The rest can run around killing players and they are doing their job. There are 6 temporary buffs around the map, but you can ignore them and you will be fine.

AB is touch the flags. Only some people need to touch. The rest will be fine running around killing players. There are 5 temporary buffs around the map, but you can ignore them and you will be fine.

And then comes Sunnyglade. There is a castle with flag in the middle, so cap it. Then there are sparks around the map, so click on them (and waste a lof of time doing it). Then carry the sparks to the middle. Oh, there are also two towers on the map that you can cap (for unclear reason). And 2 mines with mini bosses inside, that drop powerful trinkets. And sparks. And then suddenly - the objective of the bg changes when teams gather 100 sparks! Now you need to ignore the whole rest of map, and rush boss instead. Oh, and most of the people need to coordinate on it - turn in sparks, rush boss - or it will be much harder and much longer to complete.

To me, it seems like developers looked at AV and tried to copy it in smaller scale (turn ins, bosses), instead actual small scales bgs that existed in original vanilla (we could even add Eye of Storm to that).

This bg is extremely confusing, it's never clear what to do, and much of the time needs to be spent explaining to other players in chat where they should go. And very little of that time is actually spent fighting other players.

While, in reality, the main goal of every bg should be to kill players. The other objectives should be just an excuse to do that.

In Sunnyglade killing players often just delays the completion of actual objectives of the bg. The fastest way to complete it is if both teams ignore each other (which was also the main problem of AV for its entire existence. i don't know why someone thought it's a good idea to repeat it).

2) That said, how to fix it? Assuming we want to keep it's general design.

a) In my opinion, the most important thing is to remove the neccessity to coordinate with your team so much. The bg should more or less "end on its own", like AB does. To that end - the bosses shouldn't be stationary - instead, from the beginning of the game, they should be slowly walking on the predetermined paths until the point of collision with each other. Let's say it takes them 20 minutes for it. In this way, after 20 minutes of the bg, the battle between bosses begins, and the bg inevitably ends. Players from both factions join the fight on the sides of their npcs for an epic showdown.

Of course, nothing prevents the teams from engaging the bosses on their own, earlier. However:

b) Let's add some "special" effects to sparks, so that they actually directly hasten up the end of bg.

The bosses should start the game with 100% damage reduction.
Every spark collected by a team reduces this by stacking 1%. Eg. 10 sparks = boss having 90% damage reduction, 50 sparks it has 50% damage reduction and so on.
This way, the team the never controlled the middle even once through the game can't win the final boss battle and loses.
The more sparks you collect the easier it gets for your side to win.

Optionally, the sparks can also increase the movement speed of the opponent's boss. This way, the more sparks you gather, the faster the final battle will begin, and the more favourable position will it take place (closer to your gv).

3) Finally, remove the turn-in mechanic. It's a pointless activity that many players don't bother to do (like in AV). Sparks should be collected automatically, as long as you hold the middle.