Last year, we announced Battlegrounds- a new way to play Game of Thrones: Conquest, built from the ground up to provide fresh and engaging experiences for our players. If you are new to Battlegrounds, these are instanced & timed combat scenarios that you can take on as an allegiance. More information on the basics and our first Battlegrounds installment, The Great Ranging, can be found here.
As we noted in our last Battlegrounds update, our goals for this system were to build a competitive system that allowed a wide range of players to contribute meaningfully to their Allegiance’s standing.
For Titans of the North, one key element of the player experience that we wanted to give more consideration to is how we handle rewards- how you earn them, how teamwork affects rewards, along with how we close the loop at the end of a Battleground session.
Along with a new reward system, this new Battleground will require an all-new strategy against unyielding creatures. This ties directly into our trifecta of goals in making Battlegrounds Built for All, Competitive and Rewarding.
In our last update we discussed how our work was not finished after the release of The Great Ranging last fall- there was still more we wanted to accomplish north of the Wall.
In particular, we thought we could improve upon the reward distribution system to make a Battleground that is even more inclusive for any level of player, a core pillar of the game mode.
Our Battlegrounds Project owner, developer Goose came on to our monthly Discord community Stage stream to talk with Community Manager Tabris about what this will mean for the game mode, and what players can expect from Titans (TOTN). Let’s hear it from the man himself!
Tabris: What exactly is TOTN?
Goose: Titans of the North is the second iteration of Battlegrounds. Basically, we’re going to be releasing a second version of the Battleground map that players can enter. The map will be similar to what you do now, however, the experience will be very different. This time around, you’ll be facing new monsters. And there’s a completely new reward system.
The first thing I’ll start with is the rewards structure, which I think is going to be more prevalent to players. In TGR, you’re killing the monsters and in the death of the monster rewards were dished out. That works!
“But we wanted to do more, we wanted to make it more equitable, we wanted to incentivize a bigger mix of players to join a Battleground.”
So, instead of stronger players congregating together, hitting stronger monsters, and weaker players hitting weaker monsters, we kind of wanted them to team up and do it together. To facilitate that, we wanted to make the reward structure more fair. So what’s going to happen in TOTN is instead of rewards dropping from monsters, you’re now going to have a progressive that’s unique to that Battleground.
As you participate and kill monsters in the Battleground, instead of them dropping rewards, you actually begin to generate points, and those points go to a cumulative progressive, which will then reward stuff at the end of a Battleground based on how many points you accumulate throughout.
In summary, when you go into TOTN, there’s going to be two new monsters. They’re going to require more hits to kill than your traditional monsters now, however, they’re not power based, meaning that higher level players and lower level players will have the same effect on victory with those monsters. However, the difficulty is gated purely by the number of rallies and the timing required to kill them. As you kill these monsters you accumulate points, and those points contribute to the progressive, and when you leave the Battlegrounds, your entire team gets rewards based upon the total point accumulation.
Tabris: How long has the team been working on TOTN? I feel like we might want to curb some expectations about what the initial thought was for this Battleground.
Goose: So basically TOTN was initially imagined to come out alongside The Great Ranging. However, in the midst of development, we quickly realized that the type of gameplay we wanted to do with TOTN was not going to be a best player experience without a reward structure around progressives. So, we decided to hold the content back and get TGR out quicker and in players hands, and then work on the reward structure to make it better and that’s what we’re pushing out today.
At release, the rewards profile for TOTN is going to be the same as TGR. The same two heroes are going to drop and so on and so forth. However, I want to reiterate something that I think is important. TGR now is very different from what it was back when it was released. I think the same thing is going to happen with TOTN. When we release TOTN, we’re going to go into the community for feedback, do surveys, go on Discord, and take that feedback and continually iterate and improve upon things as we go.
Tabris: We have a new look into the creatures we’ll face in the Titans of the North Battleground, the Shadowcat and then the Wight Mammoth. Can you give us your insight into these two creatures and what we should expect out of them?
Goose: The Shadow Cat and Mammoth are the two new monsters. They’re different from TGR in that they increase in power every five levels, so it’d be like 10, 15, 20, 25.
Are you ready to take on the Shadowcat in Battlegrounds: Titans of the North? They are one of the brand new creatures you’ll be up against and will require calculated and coordinated assaults from your allegiance to take down. pic.twitter.com/lrdoxLRA9J
— Game of Thrones: Conquest (@GOTConquest) May 17, 2022
Shadow Cats lean on the lower end and Mammoths lean towards the higher end.
Now, the difficulty levels, like I said before, arent power based, so higher end/stronger players have the same effect on higher and low end monsters, and lower end/smaller players have the same effect on lower end and higher end monsters. The difficulty is based upon how many rallies are required in a timeframe to hit those rallies- so basically what the coordination monsters were like. You’ll need to time your rallies to strike in a very coordinated amount of time to kill them. Now I’m not looking at the real numbers, but more philosophical numbers- the lowest tier Shadowcat may require something like 10 hits in three seconds, whereas level 50 mammoth may require 30 hits in five seconds.
Meet the Wight Mammoth. One of the new creatures you’ll be fighting in Battlegrounds: Titan of the North! Along with new creatures comes a revamp to the reward system. Earn points based upon your participation in each instance and unlock progressive reward tiers! pic.twitter.com/wKcWnhO9pX
— Game of Thrones: Conquest (@GOTConquest) May 19, 2022
Coming Soon
Titans of the North is expected to release this summer, with select kingdoms getting a first look starting in June!
We will also be adjusting cooldown timers prior to the release of the new Battleground:
- The Great Ranging Initialization cooldown will be increased from 3.5 days to 7
- Titans of the North will also have a 7 day cooldown, and be available simultaneously.
- This means you will still be able to complete 2 Battlegrounds per week, just split between TGR and TOTN.
Keep an eye on your in-game Message Center for updates on when to expect these changes in game.
In the meantime, you can join in on the conversation and catch monthly Stage streams like the one above on our Community Discord by tapping the button below! We took many suggestions from players in the #Battlegrounds channel when developing The Great Ranging, and we look forward to doing the same for Titans.