Take your time to thing to read the aspects here carefully and try to think how it will affect your server/clan etc.
Again it would be great to get your feedback, questions here so this final draft can be fine tuned before it goes live.
Based on current dynamics on multiple servers, I don't see how this would improve the gameplay for small independent attacking clans. In fact, I believe that this is going to make their situation even worse.
First, let's discuss how the game currently plays out. You have a server with a low-to-medium activity in the Town hall, so only about a half of each map is opened for players to hold. 5 allied clans control the server - each agreed to own 1 map and thus share the fame pool evenly between the allies. During conflict phases, when they feel in danger (high chance of an attack by other clans) they begin to exchange their sites (for example: the clan holding sites in MW will drain GV, and the clan with sites in GV will drain MW). The attackers have 16-8 minutes (either basic or good yield) to stop their exchange, kill the players and drain the site more, thus taking it for themselves.
Now, how is this going to change after the update?
Introduce a variable drain speed for sites depending on how many sites the clan currently owns vs the opponent owned sites. It should make takeovers and defending easier if the owned buildings diverge greatly between involved clans.
- Drain rate will increase for the attacker if the clan has less sites than the site owner clan.
- Drain rate will decrease for the attacker if the clan has more sites than the site owner clan.
This might seem like a solution to exchanging sites between the allied clans at first, but what is stopping them from reaching a different agreement? During the first phase clan A will hold MW and GV and on the second phase it will swap with clan B that had 0 sites during the first phase. This will be much easier on smaller servers, as there aren't that many sites that need to be swapped. If the clan can bring online enough players (or multi-accounts!) to cover all sites, it will be much more difficult to interrupt the exchange and take some sites as there will only be a 2 minute window to do so.
- Drain rate will dynamically change during conflict as site are getting reclaimed
All sites are going to get attacked at the exact same time by the allied clans, right at the begining of the Vulnerable phase. Which means that all sites will change ownership within the first 2 minutes and the phase will essentially be over. If some miss their queue to attack by a couple seconds it won't change much, as the site would then be left as the last one to drain with less than 10% hp left.
Adrenaline Buffed
- Getting Attacker or Defender of a site grants an “Adrenaline” buff to the player, that will run for 10 seconds and gets re-applied before it expires automatically as long as the player is an active defender/attacker in the building radius
- “Adrenaline” Buff gives:
- “Defender Adrenaline” for defenders
- 4x incoming damage reduction from all PVP players that don't have the
“Attacker Adrenaline” buff
- “Attacker Adrenaline” for attackers
- 4x incoming damage reduction from all PVP players that don't have the
“Defender Adrenaline” buff
- When attacker and defender fighting against each other should be able to play as usual, but side clans will have a debuff with it.
And now, not only are the allied clans able to exchange sites in 2 minutes, they will also take no damage while being attacked by other players that want to take the site. This means that the allied clan can literally leave multiple AFK brachis (that can be multi-accounts!) spread around the map on each site to drain while remaining almost unkillable. We can assume that in most situations, the allied clans will start the drain before others (or they will kill the opponents before the phase starts with their active accounts, while the AFK brachi multi-accounts remain in their positions)
Now it is important to note that not all servers behave like this. There are servers where we can observe defence attempts from clans without the need for an exchange. But can we be sure that this will not change after the update? The players have adapted this strategy for a reason. If attacking sites is much easier than defending them and claimed sites cannot change their owner until the next Vulnerable phase, the logical conclusion is to attack your own sites. In many situations it is almost impossible to defend a site and players do not want to risk losing it. They see much more benefit in stopping others from accesing the fame that sites generate than trying to risk upgrading sites only to lose them to attackers.
Hard to predict if large servers could adapt this strategy as well. Does each clan have the manpower to cover 26 sites (2 maps)? Or could they split in multiple clans that would take turns in the exchange? Only time would tell how the update would really play out.