Here's what we've come up with, which we hope the community will approve of, while not hurting the server in any way in the long run, as well as motivating people to keep on playing Castle Wars (without forcing anyone to).
I did not include a poll this time, because I already know that most people will vote for "make it stronger and cheaper and don't let it degrade at all". Instead, if you wish to improve on our suggestions, please post your opinion on this thread. If you use a good reasoning and can convince us your ideas are better than what we have so far, we'll definitely take them into account.
Hybrid armour
- Can be used in the wilderness
- The armour can be charged. It already has decent stats at 0% charge (so you don't need to charge it to use it) and these stats increase as your charge it further. Charges are obtained by wearing the armour while playing Castle Wars and decrease when wearing it in combat elsewhere. The armour can be charged beyond 100%, at which point your armour stats no longer increase, but you'll be able to keep the max stats for longer.
The higher you charge it, the longer it takes to obtain charges. See table below for how long it would take for armour to charge up (what you see is the total time needed to reach a certain charge %):
- On death, the armour loses 10% charges and goes into your refund box where you can reclaim it for 500M coins apiece (except for the gloves which only cost 100M). The killer will receive 500M coins as a drop instead of your armour.
- Stats for the armour:
At 0% charge:
- Prices for the pieces would be as follows:
Vanguard:
Top: 1 Morrigan's Leather body 100 + 1 Torag's platebody + 1 Karil's Leathertop + 500 CW tickets
Legs: 1 Morrigan's Leather chaps 100 + 1 Torag's platelegs + 1 Karil's Leatherskirt + 400 CW tickets
Helm: 1 Morrigan's Coif 100 + 1 Torag's Fullhelm + 1 Karil's coif + 300 CW tickets
Boots: 1 pair of Bandos boots + 1 pair of Ranger boots + 200 CW tickets
Gloves: 1 pair of Barrows Gloves + 200 CW tickets
Battle-mage:
Top: 1 Vesta's Chainbody 100 + 1 Torag's platebody + 1 Ahrim's Robetop + 500 CW tickets
Legs: 1 Vesta's Plateskirt 100 + 1 Torag's platelegs + 1 Ahrim's Robeskirt + 400 CW tickets
Helm: 1 Statius' Fullhelm 100 + 1 Torag's Fullhelm + 1 Ahrim's hood + 300 CW tickets
Boots: 1 pair of Infinity boots + 1 pair of Dragon boots + 200 CW tickets
Gloves: 1 pair of Barrows Gloves + 200 CW tickets
Trickster:
Top: 1 Zuriel's Robetop 100 + 1 Ahrim's Robetop + 1 Karil's Leathertop + 500 CW tickets
Legs: 1 Zuriel's Robe bottom 100 + 1 Ahrim's Robeskirt + 1 Karil's Leatherskirt + 400 CW tickets
Helm: 1 Zuriel's' Hood 100 + 1 Ahrim's hood + 1 Karil's coif + 300 CW tickets
Boots: 1 pair of Infinity boots + 1 pair of Ranger boots + 400 CW tickets
Gloves: 1 pair of Barrows Gloves + 200 CW tickets
God bows (Saradomin, Zamorak, Guthix)
Each bow costs 1 Zaryte bow + 500 CW tickets
Has the same attack speed (3.6 seconds per shot), ranged strength (+115) and ranged bonus (+120) as a Zaryte bow and does not need arrows.
However, if you're wearing god arrows of the same type (which are dropped by GWD minions and bosses), then these arrows will be used up to give you +5 ranged strength and increase your prayer points by 10% of the damage dealt.
Wearing a god bow in GWD will offer protection from the minions of the same type.
Halos (Saradomin, Zamorak, Guthix)
Each halo costs 300 CW tickets, decreases the rate at which your prayer drains with 33%, offers protection from GWD minions of the same type and increases your ranged strength with a god bow of the same type with +10
[EDIT]
- I had initially forgotten that you can indeed not wear the helmets in a castle wars game. That being said, I'd like to exclude the helmets from charges (and not make them degrade either) but make them cost quite a bit more CW tickets.
- I had forgotten to mention that wearing a full set will offer you 20% accuracy boost for melee and ranged (for vanguard), melee and magic (for battle-mage) or ranged and magic (for trickster). That way, the boots and gloves are really worth it.
- Winning a game of castle wars will usually award you 10 - 20 tickets (depending on how many people were in the game - you can even get up to 30 tickets if both teams are big). A draw gives you half that, a loss gives 1/4th.
Furthermore, I like the suggestion of actions in the game (such as attacking enemies, capturing flags etc.) awarding charges rather than just in-game time, to counteract afk'ing.
Lastly, I understand people may be reluctant to spend a lot of time charging armour. I'd be willing to add 50% charged armour in the shops instead of 0%, but then I'd have to crank up their prices quite a bit. In the end, it's pretty much the same, really (though players may not always perceive it as such).
As for the charge and discharge times, that could use some more discussion and feedback. The main point we wanted to make is that most people wouldn't need to spend a lot of time charging the armour if they don't want to, but if they want, they can spend a lot of time on it just to make it stronger and better. It doesn't necessarily have to be like I suggested it, but we want to make something that dedicated players can spend a lot of time on if they want, but casual players have no need for.
I will not comment on other rewards for the time being. If I keep adding more rewards than I have already suggested, you can forget about it being released before October. So please let's just focus on what we have so far, so I can release it Tuesday. We can always add more rewards later and I don't want to keep delaying it much longer.