Another thing about flags is if there are more than 1 ranged you can get shot to pieces even with a shield. What if flags spawned with some cover around them? Maybe drop some siege shields or make a box around them with a few entrances
Because ranged can just as easily use that to their advantage. I've seen ranged get pushed off of flags quite a bit, and I've also seen cavalry retake flags. You do something like that and cav will have to dismount once MotF spawns. We talked about stuff like this when we were first discussing the change to MotF spawn mechanics, it's clear what the result of that discussion was.
Your initial statement is the reason why we wanted to test MotF spawning immediately at the start of every round. MotF forces combat into a strategically vulnerable location (most of the time). While there's nothing necessarily wrong with this, it often results in ranged being able to take free shots at melee due to it spawning after most people have already died; since archers are always in the back, they're generally the last to die. Having MotF spawn significantly earlier in the round would allow for teams to better fortify and prepare their flag defense. First round instant spawn MotF
rarely ended with ranged shooting flag defenders to pieces.
Then maps should designed with a defensive and attacking point of view.
A battle isnt a random thing, one side is always the agressor whilst the other is acting out of self preservation.
The defenders obviously arent dumb and should thus take the tacticly superior position. (High ground, etc.)
Now, you might say: unbalance!!!!
Yes, true, but an attacker never attacks without being vaguely sure about a possible victory - this most likely shows in a higher number of troops.
Defenders: less players, tacticly superior spawn.
Attackers: more players but a tacticly inferior spawn.
This will give a direction to battle.
The troop case could be like the attackers get 60% of the players or whatever, not my biz
Btw, You guys should have some more fantasy on the dev team. Dont you ever brainstorm together? :/
Ideas aren't the problem. There are hundreds of things that "could" address the issue, unfortunately very few are actually feasible (developer activity/motivation/interest, engine modability, etc.) While your example would work, it would completely change what we think of as "battle", and is therefore not a real solution capable of "fixing" battle. Just as Conquest would completely change that as well (why I said I'd look into conquest).
Battle is flawed by design. Yes, it's fun and far more rewarding than siege, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still clearly flawed. If we didn't have a pub(na/eu1) and cRPG Battle was only a gamemode played competitively, there wouldn't be much of an issue. But this just isn't the case.
I wish that we could balance through maps, I've wished that for over two years now. Alas, simply wishing gets you nowhere, and I'm not about to make 20+ maps. I've made one before, and it's not really something I care to do again.