Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-27844966-20181104160351

So, today I'd like to talk about waypoints. I have two main problems:

-Custom waypoints in enemy lands work just fine.

-There's no way to prevent an enemy from fast traveling right through your lands.

I suggest a simple fix: expand how banners interact with waypoints/fast travel. Specifically:

-If a waypoint is within a banner's area of effect, it is "owned" by the people whitelisted on that banner. You cannot travel to (or past?) a waypoint that doesn't have you whitelisted.

-If you while fast traveling you pass through an area covered by a banner that doesn't have you whitelisted, you will be dropped out of fast travel at their location (perhaps with no cooldown so you can resume traveling?). This would allow ambushes, seizing control over important routes, and generally let people actually fortify an area instead of a point.

-Custom waypoints won't work in un-bannered hostile lands

-Custom waypoints will update themselves periodically to make sure they're still allowed to be placed wherever they are.

So, basically, a defender would fortify and garrison waypoints and roads. Attackers would want to storm those defenses to prevent the defenders from FTing behind them (and presumably wreaking havoc on their own base, or else just attack from behind a la the Rohirrim!) and attackers might even build a network of forts of their own to allow them to fast travel inside the enemy territory (As they would need a banner over a custom waypoint, they would also want to fortify it to prevent it being destroyed).

That said, my biggest worry is stealth. No number of NPCs are going to beat a competent player-led army, so an attacking force might just pick off outposts with no players in them without ever being noticed. I would love to see a sentry NPC who would alert his player (or fellowship) upon spotting an enemy, maybe by horn, chat message, or even beacon fire. Also, a banner off in the woods protecting a waypoint won't be easy to find! Therefore, I would suggest a configurable option making the location of custom waypoints within a certain radius visible on the map, allowing scouts to locate them.  