Hi everyone,

I am the lead designer on the Kingdom vs Kingdom feature. After a few months of working and previewing to limited audiences, we’re very excited to rollout the Invasion PVP mode to all post-merge kingdoms on May 9th. KvK Invasion is an exciting new event that brings PVP to a wider array of players and provides more incentive to square off in combat. 

With the new event on the way, we thought it would be a great opportunity to talk directly to our players and get their questions and feedback. We also gather a lot of feedback from betas, surveys, official channels, and across various GoT:C communities. We have a lot of ideas on where to take Kingdom vs Kingdom, but we can’t do it without your feedback along the way.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a question for today's KvK Q&A. 

Good Hunting,

Q

A little more about the Designer...

Question Submitted by:Dr Manhattan  Who’s the one designer we are interviewing for this KvK event?

 The Lead Game Designer. My handle is Qyburn on the old forums

Question Submitted by: Pumba How many beers developer consumed during this work?

We don’t count, but that said, we don’t really go all that crazy.

 

Mechanics and Design Philosophy

Question Submitted by: Sun of my Stars  What is the idea behind this kvk? is kingdom a supposed to work together as a team to fight kingdom b or is it just a normal pvp with a bigger leaderboard and every alliance is playing on their own?

The overarching goal of the feature is to give a wider array of players the chance to square off in combat. Our early tests have taught us a ton about how players choose to fight and what they are looking for out of these events. Work together or don't, it's a new arena where how you attack determines the outcome. We're constantly looking at ways to improve through testing and feedback, and we’ll be looking into having friendly fire on and off.

 

Question Submitted by:  IRØNMÄN  Will you be allowing team tiers joining a team from another kingdom to rally sops / players of other kingdoms in the future?

At present, we aren’t planning on having cross-allegiance rallies. It is something we can look into but there are a bunch of complications to work through there.

 

Question Submitted by: Roo  i think a lot of players were disappointed with the format of KvK, do the designers have any intention of changing the format and if so, are you able to say whether those changes will use any of the suggestions made by players here or elsewhere?

Can't stress enough how intentional the scopes of our early KvK battles were and how much the mode has changed because of them. There is a ton of stuff we needed to see with the bare minimum of variables going on. KvK will continue to grow with variations on rules and rewards, but we are very confident with the release next week! Be sure to play and let us know what you think. Feedback is extremely important as we iterate over time.

 

Question Submitted by: ᴄᴀʀʟᴏ ᴠɨɨ  Will it be the same as all pvp? Will there be something new? The mode will be the same as always all against all? New rewards? Something new and more attractive for everyone please.

We will try out different modes over time to see what works and what doesn’t. We do have plans for new rewards that are presently being developed. Stay tuned and definitely come back with your thoughts and opinions after playing the mode.

 

Question Submitted by: 101 Altz  Why are you limited to having marches out/reins in only one kingdom?

Philosophically, we think it will play out better if players commit to one side of the fight at a time. In terms of tech and UI, having players exist in two kingdoms at the same time poses a ton of problems that don’t have a lot of upside. Being able to flip back and forth between two kingdoms super fast creates edge cases that can hurt the overall experience.

 

Question Submitted by: Ms-Hell Will kvk slow down the merge? Also do you get points in your kingdom as well as kingdoms you port to?! Can you join an alliance in a different kingdom when your there?

I’m not sure that it will slow down the merge process. You cannot join a foreign allegiance during KvK. You get points on both kingdoms so even if you stay home to defend you can still score points. 

Timing 

Question Submitted by: Rodno  My question about kvk is why has it not been to all kingdoms? It’s been out for awhile.

It is a really big feature and we decided to roll it out slow so that we could incorporate feedback before releasing it to everyone. KvK has an amazing amount of complicated things going on “under the hood”. With each test, we have found things that really needed extra work, not only in terms of technology but also things like timing and messaging.

 

Question Submitted by: @IRØNMÄN Will we be looking at KvK being a permanent feature of the game from now on?

 Yep - but we’re not through with it yet as well. The hope is that over time we can add more modes to keep things fresh and exciting. Come back and let us know what you think, we are looking forward to your feedback.

Question Submitted by: firebleed  How often will KvK happen in the future?

Remains to be seen. Based on how the first few runs go and based on the feedback we receive we’ll find a cadence that hopefully fits for most players.

Question Submitted by: Paper T1Øs  Could we have A KVK event like every 4 weeks for every single kingdom?

The cadence of KvK events will take some time to iron out. We don’t want to wear folks out but we want to keep the game exciting. KvK events will happen regularly from here on out but we have to wait and see just how much of a gap or rest time feels right once it is live.

 

Who gets to take part in KvK events? 

Question Submitted by: Pup 🐶 K501 Can 501 get a KVK soon?

 In terms of who gets KvK soon, all I can say is that it is intended for mature kingdoms. We don’t want to drop it on kingdoms where players are still learning to play and get their feet under them.

Question Submitted by: Tdonut   What keep level do I have to be in order to be a part of kvk?

This is intended for post-merge kingdoms, but there is no keep level restrictions.

  

Question Submitted by: ragnarock66 Are all kingdoms entering kvk on the same weekend?

Subject to change but KvK weekends will likely include all kingdoms that are far enough along in their life cycle.

Question Submitted by: Minerva  Will kingdoms who didn't have KVK because of merge have one? Please :-)

Up until this point, we have hand-selected kingdoms for KvK as we gather feedback and improve the event. Going forward it is game on. That said, we do have to keep merge and KvK from running on top of each other because that would be “bad”.

 

Question Submitted by: happy gilmore  Hi, can you do something on KVK that all the top teams don’t win all the time to spice things up? And pvp etc

We are putting a lot of effort into creating good matchups. This will be an ongoing effort though. Finding the sweet spot is the goal.

 

Question Submitted by: Sub-ZerO  I think KvK may be more appealing if it offers something for players of every level and power For instance KvK PvP with nodes , that way even the smallest  player will have a chance to compete on its level ..Do you agree ? Will we see something like this soon ?

We are looking into modes of KvK play that will accommodate contributions from players at a variety of levels. We will have to see how Invasion plays out to really zero in on what that means. Feedback is always welcome.

 

New Kingdom, New Enemies

Question Submitted by: Queen Sarah Can I chose the kingdom where I port to or is it random?

We create the matchups. You can port to a specific kingdom for each event.
 

Question Submitted by: king Ragnar We’ve not had a pvp yet in k520 and was wondering how will kingdoms be matched up.

 In short, we try to match like-kingdoms so that the events will be competitive. In practice, we have a lot of folks that look over a bunch of metrics to try to make sure that things stay competitive. Up until now we have been only running on a small set of kingdoms to test out our theories on how to properly set up matchups. We're confident in the results and can't wait to see what you think of the mode on May 9th.

 

Question Submitted by: bluesfan It would be nice to use you kvk ports to go to specific kingdoms will that ever become a possibility

Question Submitted by: 𝓢𝓝 | 𝚂𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚊 | Is there a possibility for a permanent-in store kingdom teleport- that will allows us to jump kingdoms, in the future?

Question Submitted by: SpaceStation  Why can’t we have the option to choose a kingdom during a kvk  event from a list of kingdom powers in order to create an enticing possibility of a choices. This would put the result on the player but would add to an exciting risk.

Question Submitted by:  Keebler Why can’t we choose to stay in another kingdom? Could we have that option?

Question Submitted by: Dracarys (K480)  --  Will we ever be able to move our keep to another kingdom permanently or just KVK event in the future?

Question Submitted by: SVG Dan If players are allowed to hop kingdoms, kvk will be a disaster.

For all of the above, permanent teleports to other kingdoms are something we are looking into, but we’re not pulling the trigger at this point. Temporary times for KvK is a totally different feature than hopping to a new kingdom permanently.

 

Seats of Power

Question Submitted by: moni  Will kvk be altered so that you can take an hold sops in other kingdoms ?

In the future, yes. Right now the rules and play are relatively simple to not burden players with layers of complexity. KvK is a new mode, we want to get people in to experience it, then continue to optimize with new types of variations. SoP takeovers are a consideration, as are many others. We're looking forward to continuing to build and iterate.

 

Question Submitted by: Leon Kennedy  What if I port to another kingdom and conquer kings landing.... will game kick me out automatically at the end of event.... will it become up for grabs in original kingdom ?

 Everyone is sent home at the end of the event.

 

Combat Balance & Timing

Question Submitted by: big dog  Can you make it reset?  We defeated other kingdom In about 45 minutes. They had no titles and it was pretty much over.  If it was like night king it would give more chances

Question Submitted by: Big Momma  The thing with the invasion KvK is ... once all the paramounts were taken that was it ... why not make them reset?? It made the event boring

Question Submitted by: sir targaryan  Without being able to bubble game an sop, will there be say a reinforcement capacity increase to allow defending to be possible since rallies send much more troops than can be defended against? Or allow reins to be sent even when capacity is reached so can be replenished between rallies

Question Submitted by: TeamBee5  What plans do you have to prevent kingdoms from turtling during kvk?

The team is looking into a bunch of different ways to keep things competitive and spicy during KvK. The feature will continue to evolve and the feedback here is good stuff. 

 

Rewards

Question Submitted by: Justin Premier Will there be rewards for the winning kingdom as a whole ? If so, are you concerned that it might discourage people from participating in the event, due to them not wanting the other allegiance of their own kingdom to get a reward as well ?

Question Submitted by: starlighting Can the KVK have  rewards worth fighting over for the Winning KINGDOM not just alliegence (ie KS/gold flake/slate caravans or something not easily attainable)? Would actually promote a true Kvk, rather than just making it a glorified normal pvp

Question Submitted by: Silje Since it's called kingdom vs kingdom is there a possibility for wb to make it so the rewards are per person, per alliance and per kingdom? Like we get three rewards. Would be fun to "come together" as a kingdom and fight too and see how much points we all can get together

For early runs of KvK we focussed on things like stability, timing and other technical things. Going forward we will be adding in cooler rewards and full kingdom leaderboards. We are working on rewards that are  exciting.

 

Other Suggestions

Question Submitted by: Blackfish  I think kvk should be both kingdoms going to a neutral new map and then awarding points for sop taken and held for good rewards. Make it worth our while, we get sop releases which some people like, plus it’d even the field as far as titles go. Also it would be better fighting wise because if it’s a neutral map there’d be no rules on what can be attacked.

Question Submitted by: Conquest  KvK would be dope if it opened to a new kingdom map where players could come together to climb the ladder and take over seats with better rewards. Doesn’t even need to be unable to hit players from the same kingdom. Make it a free for all. Just straight up war and land grab on a new map (?)

Question Submitted by: Sun of my Stars  imo opinion it would make more sense to port all keeps at the beginning of a kvk to a new map (would be a good chance to add essos) with new seats. seats should have special titles worth fighting for. points for taking seats, holding it, takeover ... special rewards (no, not the 2 blue coins like in MNW for holding wall seats) for holding it or after the kvk for the winning kingdom. if you want to see kingdom a fighting together against kingdom b, are there any game mechanics planned like you could join also rallies of a different alliance of your kingdom to fight the other one?

A new map is something we are working out the details on. We are still vetting the gritty details on how to implement it. Not right around the corner… but thought and debate are going into it.

  

Question Submitted by: Mac A’ Bhàirling  For the KvK event, would it be possible for it to be a month or two month long event. The two competing kingdoms are teleported to a new kingdom with no seats open and then over the course of the month the seats open in a similar fashion to a merged server, after the seats are all open they progress to a month where all the paramounts are open each weekend. Points could be assigned via a PvP event lasting the duration of the KvK event with bonus points for seat takeovers and then seats held at the KvK event close. Plus with node events or wall events during the week rather than weekend during this time. Would mean a KvK event wouldn’t be limited to a weekend but could become something that’s worth taking the time to invest in.

We would like to get to a point where we have longer, more-robust event arcs. KvK will be a part of that future.

 

Question Submitted by: Capura - K479  Will we see multiple kingdom KvK one day? Empty map / 3 or more kingdoms.  Winning sop at opening- points  Holding - points  Conquering - points Bubble game - penalty  Loosing sop - penalty And some nice rewards for winner so the map burns permanently

We are working on lots of variants for scoring and rules. Some of the stuff on this list is on our radar.

 

Question Submitted by: Stalin  --  As to what Capura said... can we have a KvK in the future with the  stronger kingdoms with all the other kingdoms locked, so we could all watch it

Hadn’t thought of this. Interesting idea. I do like me a good thunderdome.

 

Question Submitted by: House de Burca  During KvK, will you eventually lower the level of Dragon to allow for reigning of SoPs and allied keeps.  It would level the playing field of middle sized players and teams to Big Dragons.  If a Dragon has reached Adulthood they should be able to hang out at friends keeps and SoPs; don’t you trust an adult dragon to stay over night without causing too much trouble?

We plan to run KvK event with variant rules down the road. This suggestion is something we will look into.

 

Question Submitted by: Oak  During KVK event is there a way to make points accumulate for TIME a sop is held. As well as for how quickly a sop is removed from an opposing kingdoms possession? The points would then add to the grand total of the KVK event— of which there should be a clear winner. If it’s truly kingdoms against other kingdoms — a kingdom should be a winner, not an allegiance.

We are working on having rewards for complete kingdoms on top of the ones for allegiances and individuals. Points over time is also something we’re thinking about for the future.

 

Question Submitted by: Khal Køng Would KvK brackets ever be possible?  Once a kingdom loses they are out of the tournament and the winninrg kingdom proceeds to the next KvK with fresh/better rewards. This would make the “KvK Tournament event” several days - a month allowing players to create strategies and plans. ALSO if you could live stream the openings of the SOPs during the tournament.. it would allow all the new kingdoms and new players to watch the action and even comment on it. It would be inspiration for new players to see what kinda fun is in their future.

This sounds awesome. I’ll see what we can do.

KvK Invasion events start May 9th, 2020. See you on the battlefield!