Goblin Squad Member
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This seems to pop up in other threads, so I'm starting this one:
How should structure attacks be handled?
My thoughts:
Hideout:
Finding a hideout:
- It should require a huge amount of time spent to train the ability find hideouts, and the time required to upgrade the hideouts concealment should be short in comparison. The two should meet around the time you hit 18 merit badges, and it should still require a good deal of time to find a hideout and it should force you to be open to attack from the occupants.
Destroying a hideout:
- Set on Fire, 16 hours of burning until complete loss, until which time players can come try and put out the fire to save their stuff.
Stealing a hideout:
-If you have another skill trained up high enough, you can move the entrance to the hideout and take it for you self, this takes 1 hour of game time.
Inn:
There should be a few NPC guards guarding the inn that are on a 30 minute respawn timer. They are killable, and their 'level' is dependent on how much the inn has upgraded this aspect.
Destroying the Inn:
Set on fire, 20 hour burn. Interior stored items destroyed at an exponential rate, resulting in 10% loss after 10 hours and 90% loss after 18 hours.
Claiming the Inn:
I the attacking party doesn't destroy the building, they can take control. When the guards 're-spawn' a timer is set, you have 10 minutes to kill the guards, upon which time you get one 'capture point' once you have 20 capture points you get control of the building.
Now Fort's Watchtowers, and Settlements fall under the same method of attacking
You must declare an attack. This involves making a challenge every 10 hours for two weeks. If a challenge is accepted, you fight for control, after two weeks, if no challenge is answered you get to attack the structure for the next 72 hours at and either destroy it or take control. After 72 hours the cycle starts again.
The required challenge time window could change, with a 5 day for forts, to 3 weeks for a settlement. Breaching the initial defenses to get in still requires siege if it is described as such in the blog.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm actually fairly comfortable with Hideouts and Watch Towers being fairly easy to destroy, maybe even only taking a few minutes if no one is there.
My big concern is with Forts and Settlements, and Inns to a lesser degree. I'm very anxious to hear more details from GW about how they see Siege Warfare happening.
In my mind, Siege Warfare against a Fort should require the attackers to spend at least two hours constructing Siege Engines. The attackers should have to be able to defend this construction until it's complete before they can even begin to damage the Fort. And it should take a significant investment of time and resources to prepare the Siege Engines to be constructed. Those costs should not be recoverable, regardless of the outcome.
If the attackers manage to defend their Siege Engines until they're fully constructed, then the actual siege should last at least 24 hours but no more than a number of days equal to the Health Level (combined upgrades and current happiness status) of the Fort, but never more than 7 days, during which time both sides work to damage the other side and repair their own.
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Goblin Squad Member
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From another perspective, the problems I see with Siege Warfare that I tried to address are:
1. Ensure there is a window in which the defenders can repel the attackers, but don't make that window so large that it takes away the attackers' advantage of surprise.
2. Ensure the siege itself is "epic", and that both sides will have a real opportunity to get their side mobilized.
3. Ensure there is a real benefit to keeping your peasants satisfied, and for upgrading.
4. Ensure that it will take an active defense force to keep a Fort from being taken over fairly quickly (inside a day).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was thinking, and i would like to see watchtowers upgradable to a 'siege only'. when the watchtower moves from a wood base to stone walls. Starting watchtowers should be bare bone scaffolding basically, with a ladder and place to stand on top, and fully upgraded should be a stone pillar, like the stone watchtowers in skyrim. At the starting stage of bare wood, it should be very easy to overtake.
The hard part here is taking what in Medieval earth was 10's of thousands of solders fighting over months to years of time, and putting into a system where each side has at most a few hundred people. Then you have to take that and scale it down to a few days.
The biggest area of trouble in this system is keeping players from getting the game forced upon them. I can see lots of guilds only recruiting people that play 5 hours a day, and rising to power fast. I don't want to see that happen. The system needs to be moderately casual in nature and give people a few chances to protect their stuff or have the chances they will log into find losses very small. I would like to see creating buildings a much more common occurrence than taking them over.
I wouldn't mind seeing the first year or two of the game disable siege, so the world can get populated more thoroughly. Encourage players to expand and search out new materials than take the easy route and take what they want from whomever has it. Think of the first 2 years of the game like the placement stage in risk, but you don't have cards to tell you where to plant your flag, and there are way more than 6 players.
I think it would be nice to see a game require siege weapons to actually make dents in large scale structures. I never did like watching a siege in AoC allow swords and piddling spells to blow holes in 3 foot thick (or more, even simulated) stone. Totally unrealistic. Even those mammoths should have been unable to damage them; their heads would cave in first. Trees are one thing, and wooden forts are easily toppled, but a stone fortress, buttressed? Never in a million years by a large pack of pachyderms. The amount of time it would take to do that, compared to the amount of time it would to kill those hairy elephants, makes that idea a non starter. Funcom also did not allow defenders to defend properly with boiling oil, a moat, or any of the other rather ingenious defenses that feudal warcraft came up with.
Now an earth elemental, that I'd buy, at least in the game setting. Maybe Giants past the Hill Size variety. And of course a dragon can ignore battlements in favor of simply spewing flame inside the walls. But a more mundane approach should require the correct use of mundane equipment. Catapults, mangonels, and trebuchet should be the order of the day, with archers to keep the defenders from doing much but ducking.
But I don't think a proper siege can be realized in any MMO, the reality of them is a very long and drawn out process than can take months or more, particularly if the defenders have ready access to the basic necessities. I doubt any guild has the fortitude to actually deal with that. Now a standard siege for starvation, more in line with modern day blockades, is easily done. No attack necessary. Just keep enough people logged and surrounding. But an invasion? I can't see it, unless they make a joke of it like AoC did.
Perhaps they ought to look at L2, they have sieges there with large numbers per side, and they manage to pull them off, though those are still timed assaults.
The problem with every MMO is a huge disconnect from the reality of any time based restraints beyond simplistic cooldowns that take minutes and no more than an hour tops. It would certainly make winning that kind of fight something to brag on about if a siege actually took real time days, as it is then different from running the standard raid setup, which is how most sieges are run in MMOs. The fort is the boss, the conflicts leading up to it are the mini bosses. Time is normally only an hour or so. Something to do certainly, but not very satisfying. To me anyway.
And if gamers found that boring, well, do you think those grunts sweating it out surrounding the castle felt any different on day 15 of their siege? They probably were begging for a sally, just for something to do.
Running it like this would also allow other players to attack to relieve the siege, something I've never seen happen in any game yet. Sure, they let you set up the assault, one side vs the other, but no one is allowed to come to your defense, the fight has to be kept even, because we know all sieges were done by opposing forces of equal size in history, right? <snicker> I poke a bit of fun, but it's to point out that running a siege in all games I've seen yet is a farce. Trying to keep sides even is a huge hand holding exercise. People may whine about zerging, but that's only because death is also a farce in MMOs. If death meant you were actually OUT of that siege, then zerging is a non issue. Make the siege like a single death unreal tourney battle. You die once, you are out of it, subject to raise dead or whatever. This forces tactics, which I've never yet seen played out properly, regardless of how much people scream into mics in the Ettens.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Trying to keep sides even is a huge hand holding exercise. People may whine about zerging, but that's only because death is also a farce in MMOs. If death meant you were actually OUT of that siege, then zerging is a non issue. Make the siege like a single death unreal tourney battle. You die once, you are out of it, subject to raise dead or whatever. This forces tactics, which I've never yet seen played out properly, regardless of how much people scream into mics in the Ettens.
"One attempt per character per attack" is probably the best mechanic I've seen proposed. It even creates the market for a mercenaries who specialize in raising their rates.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I totally agree and think that would be a good mechanic. As long as you are actively rez'd, you can continue to fight in a battle...when you fall and do not get rez'd you cannot assist in the battle. The only drawback is I have not idea how it would work mechanically; short of phasing, which I hope does not happen. Alternately, they can utilize a flagging PvP system, which again I hope they do not do.
I suppose, once war is declared you are able to fight and kill without being flagged a criminal, once. Once you die and come back, if you kill someone involved in the conflict you will be flagged criminal for x amount of time. But, the other side would still be able to kill you without flagging (this keeps you from going and spying or other forms of sabotage).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Once you're out of NPC controlled hexes, I don't think you can be flagged as a criminal by the NPC factions. Maybe if there's a reputation system you can lose enough standing with one or more of the NPC factions and become "Kill on Sight" if you reenter NPC territory, but other than that, I really hope that any criminal justice will be left up to the bounty system and/or players in general. The whole point of open territory is that it's up to the player community to maintain stability and enforce laws.
Maybe if different player-factions are not actively at war, then criminal flagging would make a certain kind of sense, at least in that you could exact retribution without penalty. Once factions are in a state of war however, as long as it's outside NPC-controlled territory, I hope anything goes.
My major concern with the siege-system is, if you can start a siege before GW makes it possible to enter/exit buildings, what do the defenders do?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The only drawback is I have not idea how it would work mechanically; short of phasing, which I hope does not happen.
I suppose, once war is declared you are able to fight and kill without being flagged a criminal, once.
So once war is declared, you can kill enemy settlement characters without problem, until you die (and aren't rezzed on the spot). Does that mean that if you attack again that you can have bounties placed on your head? Or does it mean that you simply cannot engage enemy settlement characters for the duration of the war, though they can attack you without consequence? I'd prefer the second. However it is done it would give settlement leadership incentive to come to terms after some amount of time. Better to lose something than hold out and lose everything.
I'd assume that such rules would mostly apply to areas under official control of the two settlements. Conflict in contested areas is always fair.
Attacks in controlled areas without a declaration of war should always be considered banditry. That is, if one character attacks another character in a player settlement hex, it should normally be treated as an illegal killing, depending on the circumstances. It isn't enforced by the NPC settlements, and it's up to the players to enforce local laws. But it could still result in bounties. The most lawless settlements won't have such silly rules, of course.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I suppose we will have to wait and see how GW handles policing of PC cities...if at all. And, I am not sure how they can keep you from fighting in a battle, no matter how many times you have died in the battle...in an open PvP system. That is why I was suggesting they use the already implemented criminal system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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They've given us hints about the criminal system, but neither the criminal system nor anything else has been implemented yet. So I'd think GW can do whatever they want to code.
I'm agreeing with Probitas and DeciusBrutus, I think. I'd prefer that Settlement vs Settlement conflict depend more on resources, tactics, and strategy and less on endless zerg rushes by the same players. It would certainly be different.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As it was suggested, just make the structures have so much durability/damage-reduction that only siege weapons can do damage. Have it take 2-5 hours to destroy the structure, and that's only at full-efficiency.
That way, it won't strictly matter how many players are on the attacking side, only how many siege weapons are, which will take a lot of time and resources to construct and/or transport. Attacking players will run the siege engines, and protect the operators. Defending players will work to disrupt the siege by disrupting the engines. Defending players (if things were planned properly) will have access to large stores of items and resources banked in the settlement. The attacking players will have to carry/ship everything in. Attacking players who aren't resurrected on the spot will have to travel back to the battlefield. Defending players will pop back up nearby.
Logistics will matter a lot more than numbers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some of the times suggested seem odd to me - for instance 16 hours to burn a cave.
Then there's relocating the entrance. This wouldn't just entail building an entrance, but burying the old one beyond recovery, else what's to stop the old occupants from simply tunneling back in the same way they originally came into the hideout?
Unless you're suggesting completely caving the hideout in and rebuilding a similar one close by. I wouldn't go with the burning approach here. I guess it depends what the hideout is though. Cave? Little hunter's shack? A portable hole?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think you should have a significant bonus to locate a hideout that has ambushed you.
I think taking a fort should require something like 3x the amount of attackers vs. Defenders.
There should be some disruption in communication from the defenders. Maybe limit chat options to local to simulate the attackers cutting off couriers/pigeons.
Add some bonus for the attackers the longer the siege drags on to simulate dwindling supplies in the fort.
Maybe add a feature for forts to have extra supplies as an option during construction. Or an escape tunnel to negate the communication penalties.
I would have to agree with Nihimon on this one, it would become a easily avoidable mechanic that was implemented. I think finding a hideout should be a long, complex venture that involves multiple skills and basic knowledge of where it is located. It should be a team effort not based on a single-person. As for sieging, I still need more information on the game before I make any presumptions on it.