Discussion thread for new blog entry Goblinworks Blog: They Flew the Colors, They Began to Fight.
Goblin Squad Member
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Some nice clarifications and details about the PVP window, I'm looking forward to figuring out what kind of force it will take to knock down the off-hour defenders. One question in regard to this: would assassination or sabotage decrease the effectiveness of the NPC defenders outside of the PVP window?
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Goblin Squad Member
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While the PvP window is closed, the settlement is defended by a large number of NPC guards from one of the major alliances in the game: Hellknights for LN, LE, NE, and TN towns, Knights of Iomedae for LG, LN, NG, and TN towns, or the League of the Wood for CN, CE, and NE towns.
CG is not mentioned.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah... Depending on map size, I could see player squatting on all adjacent settlement hexes surrounding a city, using minimum possible members and leaving the PVP window off and keeping the bare minimum indexes. They wouldn't care about low resources or if it gets taken because they could just train at their parent settlement. This would allow denial of resources for enemies or newcomers trying to create a new settlement or expand. It also forces anyone trying to claim the hex to commit a huge effort to break through NPC defenses, possibly leaving the home hex vurnable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will a Settlement be able to modify its PvP Window while an attack or siege is underway? It seems to me that once the siege is laid, or possibly even once there's a Declaration of War, that the defenders should have to live with their current PvP Window or increase it, but not move or decrease it.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Maybe I'm looking at this wrong: How much lead time is required to change or reduce the PvP window? As a settlement loses control of POIs and wilderness hexes, the capping of DI will be a smaller disincentive and the benefits of more defenders become more and more attractive.
I love the implications for a defense-in-depth strategy, where a nation has a shell of either member settlements or pets with low DI and full factional protection surrounding a few high-value settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... I could see player squatting on all adjacent settlement hexes surrounding a city...I would hope this would prove prohibitively expensive.It seems likely that while the settlement NPC 'off-duty' guards will be insurmountable, the smaller 'featured site' 'off-duty' guards will be less so. The blog suggests that there will be far fewer of them; this suggests to me that 'squating' on adjacent hexes will be difficult without a PC force present (though primary settlement hexes might be easier to do).
To be clear, there's a difference between "settlement hexes" and "wilderness hexes". The latter allow POIs. The former only allow Settlements. So, in order to squat on all adjacent settlement hexes, you'd need to actually build Settlements, not just POIs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Very interesting blog; it answered my main question from last week as to the siege system.
It does raise new questions though, specifically on the guards; depending on the faction that guards your settlement, do they follow their own ruleset, or those of the settlement?
For instance, in a city defended by Knights of Iomedae, could we set a KoS list with them, even though some of the KoS may be considered of the 'Good' alignment?
Thanks for the blog, GW!
- Krow
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I enjoyed the Blue Oyster Cult reference in the blog title immensely.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will a Settlement be able to modify its PvP Window while an attack or siege is underway? It seems to me that once the siege is laid, or possibly even once there's a Declaration of War, that the defenders should have to live with their current PvP Window or increase it, but not move or decrease it.
I would say allow a settlement to adjust their PVP whenever they desire, but the adjustment would not take effect until after 24hours.
EDIT: Tertiary's suggestion of a 1/Weekly PvP Window would likely be best. While 24h Timer would prevent in-combat Abuse, it may annoying to have a settlement flip-flop between closed and open every other day just to make it difficult to siege while not staying closed enough for its buildings to decay, or changing the PvP window erratically from day to day to make it difficult to sync a force up to mount a siege.
It might even be neat to consider only allowing a settlement to adjust their PvP Window 1/Month, forcing a settlement to make a more long-term decision.
+1 to 1/Week PvP Window Change.
or
+1 to 1/Month PvP Window Change.
So, this isn't too on-topic, but I'm interested by the idea that a tavern could be a defensible location--if only a thorn in the side of most proper settlements. Am I right in thinking that one could build a tavern without building a Settlement?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Settlement PvP Window sounds good to me. The setting of window however needs to be more constant than changeable I'd assume due to the knock-on effect of DI. Unless there's a lag to that? But overall it depends on how quickly players are mobilising and reacting to the pvp window??
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Tertiary
If there is a MAX PvP window it should be no less then 12 hours, half a day. It is likely, if you have a large enough settlement to warrant a MAX window that you would have enough players to cover that time frame. I know many of us work, but many of us work different shifts and different timezones not to mention you can set the NO PvP hours to when the majority of your settlement is sleeping.
Personally, what would be perfect for me would be a 16 MAX, so 16/hours a day you are open for PvP and 8 hours a Day you are at NO PvP.
This would allow most settlements of players who play together to have a Relatively full PvP window where 2/3 of the day is PvP they can have MAX DI.
They can rest easy when the mass majority of their players are slumbering during that 8 hour period (whether the night owls are just going to bed or the early birds just starting their day)
they won't fear that the Asia players will storm their settlement and conquer them without a fight while they sleep.
(Or for the Asia players that your settlement is conquered without a fight during American Prime Time)
If there is a minimum time, eh I don't know about that. Unless they set up a rule for If your DI is < 200 or 250 or something then minimum PvP window = 0. If DI is > 200 or 250 then minimum PvP window = .5 or 1 (hours)
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Goblin Squad Member
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A Settlement with a closed PvP window could charge people to allow them to attack their guards without repercussion to train their attacks against NPCs. This could be fun, too, allowing for weird street layouts and Settlement-sponsored contests for sneaky people, like track this person or find the hidden chest without getting caught by a player (and present the contents to a player ref).
Just an odd idea.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a leader type dies through regular combat do indexes drop or is it only through the act of assassinations?
Great question. If the deaths of "generals" on the field affected DI, it would encourage them to act like generals, directing the troops from a command center more often than wading into combat. Chances are, someone with heavy skill specialization in a non-combat leadership role would avoid the battlefield anyway.
Edit: Years down the road, a map table interface for generals (looking like an RTS game) would be awesome.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IIRC, it is possible for a settlement to have a 24-hour PvP window, if they so chose.
I think they walked that back in this blog:
If your settlement is open to attack for a good portion of each day, the settlement's DIs will have a pretty high limit (if any limit at all).
My hunch is that you'll be able to max your DI with something like an 8 or 12 hour PvP window. I wouldn't be surprised if you're allowed to set it higher, though, but I expect it won't be necessary.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IIRC, it is possible for a settlement to have a 24-hour PvP window, if they so chose.
But how quickly can a settlement (whose DI is maxed for the number of controlled hexes and maxwindow) to close the window, and what would be the consequences for closing it?
If someone declared war on us and we already had a high DI, in part because our PvP window was so wide open, could we reduce the duration of that window? How quickly? What would be the consequences on our DI, if any?
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Goblin Squad Member
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From You Can Live in Grace and Comfort
For truly massive Settlements, we might be looking at a sector-by-sector street-battle that could take several days. Players log in, manage to drop a wall and take over a 'sector' of a Settlement and expend resources to move their NPC Mercenaries into the Sector, creating friendly combatant NPCs within the Sector that can help them expand into other Sectors, or can slow down the Defenders while they are Offline.
Alternatively, the 'fall' of a Sector within a Settlement might very well remove some benefits from the Defenders and apply benefits of the same nature to the Attackers. Or the 'fall' of a sector might instead reward the Attackers with immediate material resources, such as gold, finished goods and crafting items that they can use to replenish their own resources and pay for mercenaries.
I wonder if this would be the correct affect of the closing of the PvP window? Even if you move in your own NPC mercenaries, would they be as strong as the NPC guards hired from the NPC alliances?
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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Answering some of the questions posted:
Would assassination or sabotage decrease the effectiveness of the NPC defenders outside of the PVP window?
Currently undecided. There are pros in each side.
CG is not mentioned. (for what faction protects the town)
Whoops. Probably Eagle Knights.
Do these captured Flags have to be planted in the middle of a sub hex to take it?
Not sure what you mean. By using the term capture flags I mean the flags you have to plant and defend in a settlement to claim it so you don’t have to burn down everything to capture it. We’ll probably use something similar for POIs so you can capture them without burning them down.
Will a Settlement be able to modify its PvP Window while an attack or siege is underway?
No. PvP window will have a long lead time on being changed, such as several days or a week, so if you make a change to your PvP window it will not take effect for awhile.
It does raise new questions though, specifically on the guards; depending on the faction that guards your settlement, do they follow their own ruleset, or those of the settlement. For instance, in a city defended by Knights of Iomedae, could we set a KoS list with them, even though some of the KoS may be considered of the 'Good' alignment?
They follow the settlement rules, though settlements will only have NPCs from compatible alignments so these shouldn’t be too far off from each other.
If a leader type dies through regular combat do indexes drop or is it only through the act of assassinations?
Only if you jump through the assassination hoops. Once the fight is on we want people to be able to really get involved without feeling they need to hang back or the settlement is screwed. That’s just not any fun for the leaders. Now if an assassin does manage to assassinate someone on the battlefield (i.e. uses the mask and the whole nine yards as was disguised previously) it totally counts. This is why you don’t want your leaders running around totally alone, or you want them leading formations if possible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It does raise new questions though, specifically on the guards; depending on the faction that guards your settlement, do they follow their own ruleset, or those of the settlement. For instance, in a city defended by Knights of Iomedae, could we set a KoS list with them, even though some of the KoS may be considered of the 'Good' alignment?
They follow the settlement rules, though settlements will only have NPCs from compatible alignments so these shouldn’t be too far off from each other.
Thanks for the response, Lee!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really hope we can abandon the distinction between hexes and sub-hexes soon. I think the only reason we have both is because the original map of the Crusader Road region used really large hexes, and GW subsequently decided that those hexes were too big.
Things get really complicated when people start referring to sub-hexes as hexes for typing convenience (or texting convenience). Eventually, it would be nice to have all measurements refer to the same hex size.
If I recall correctly, the folks at GW did not like the idea of conquering settlements one district at a time (even big settlements). I believe the comparison to DI changes due to PVP window re-sizing is valid, but I think the idea of street-by-street control zones is not popular with the people who would have to implement the code for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What happens if you are in the middle of a siege and the pvp window ends?
Do the really tough NPC guards start spawning or does there have to be a break in the action for x amount of time before they activate.
I can see both sides. It would be disappointing to be in the middle of a good siege when the tough NPC guards show up. On the other hand it could provide a morale incentive "we just have to hold out to x and reinforcements will arrive."
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Goblin Squad Member
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What happens if you are in the middle of a siege and the pvp window ends?
Do the really tough NPC guards start spawning or does there have to be a break in the action for x amount of time before they activate.
I can see both sides. It would be disappointing to be in the middle of a good siege when the tough NPC guards show up. On the other hand it could provide a morale incentive "we just have to hold out to x and reinforcements will arrive."
Unsure. I would hope that the window can't be closed until a siege is resolved one way or another. That would lead me to believe that a siege will have a mechanic, itself, wherein it can officially be "broken".
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is all speculation but...
Personally I would build my siege camp at a safe distance from the NPC guards. How much of an area can they patrol? We all know NPCs are not that bright.
Unless a settlement can be build in the course of a few days. Some thing that can destroy significant portions of a settlement should take more than a day to build. Let me say that another way. If building a settlement is going to require harvesting, and shipping in lumber, stone, ore, etc. so will a siege camp / engines.
Siege weapons could be built elsewhere, but moving them to the site ready to use might be more work than assemble on site.
It would have to be within a distance that it could all be employed quickly and artillery could be placed. Perhaps you have to be at war to start building a camp within the hex or nearby hex but the NPC guards would defend the settlement not the entire hex.
When the Huns showed up everybody was surprised, when the Romans showed up people knew they were coming for days in advance, then they started building.
All of which makes me want to ask...
Will a siege camp have NPC guard outside the PVP window? In theory the attackers will have an alliance as well. Will building a siege camp be an extended project needing NPC guards?
Will Siege weapons / towers have the ability to be prefab, ready for assembly? Will they have to be built inside a siege camp only? Inside a settlement owned hex?
Teamsters could very well be the most important skill set in war for an attacking force. Not going to bring up Napoleon I swear. Support your "Pathfinder Local Teamsters Union". hmmm Union boss now that sounds promising.
Vwoom
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will a siege camp have NPC guard outside the PVP window? In theory the attackers will have an alliance as well. Will building a siege camp be an extended project needing NPC guards?
I am doubting that siege camps will have NPC faction guards in the way settlements will. Doesn't make sense that you could bring them along. NPC PC guards? (If that makes sense) I don't know. We don't know if there will be any type of NPC guards outside of settlement hexes at all.
The rest of your questions I haven't a clue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What happens if you are in the middle of a siege and the pvp window ends?
I certainly hope the cavalry arrives and the attackers have to withdraw and try again tomorrow.
Why do I hope that? Because of real life. The PVP window is essentially the settlement saying: this is when we are online to engage in war. If you want players with commitments outside the game (ie. a life) to take part in the territory control game, we need that protection.The alternative is that a guild based in a later time zone declares war in the last 5 minutes of your pvp window, then just wait for another 4 hours before attacking to make sure they meet the minimum resistance. That is unfair on meta-gaming scale and not a smart tactic.
Logging off during war and hoping the npc guards can handle it is bad enough. Not being able to log on a day during the pvp window is bad enough. Losing your settlement (to someone too weak to take you or the npc guards in a fight) because you logged off 5 minutes before the pvp window closed is not acceptable!
Not having npc guards show up at their predicted time favors later time zones and punishes people with limited/inflexible playtime. The (opportunity) cost of the npc protection is not trivial (limited DI), you should at least get what you pay for.
EDIT: Even if you need to break off the battle and start over the next day, the settlement should not necessarily regenerate all buildings. A simple 24 hour debuff for building damaged beyond a certain point could lead to whole new "strategic bombing" strategies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What happens if you are in the middle of a siege and the pvp window ends?
I'd have thought the NPC guards turn up, hence the window being smaller being more risky to engage that settlement in pvp or more challenging to defeat it sooner before reinforcements turn up?
I think about siege camps as forward respawn point and gear storage - first and foremost. If there can be a siege engine with farther reach than defenders have - that's even better.
But all this is pure speculation.
I don't know much about respawn points, but I think they are very strategic and depend on "soul-binding points". That would appear to be exclusive of mobile siege and war camps?
It would seem to make sense given that is the defenders "Home Team" advantage to the attackers? IE an offensive force really needs to pose a much greater force given it has to crack defences and at the disadvantage of supply lines further away; including friendly respawn points?
If I recall correctly, the folks at GW did not like the idea of conquering settlements one district at a time (even big settlements). I believe the comparison to DI changes due to PVP window re-sizing is valid, but I think the idea of street-by-street control zones is not popular with the people who would have to implement the code for it.
The way I see it, if destroying or capturing the buildings responsible for the DI properties stops them that is good enough? Second to this, if settlements can be built so that street fighting can involve choke points and natural use of the settlement's environment to hold or take parts of it (and attack or protect the settlement's DI key buidings) that seems to support a "capture the Hall" flag idea without coding in specific conditions?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the concept of sub-hexes is still a valid one, people just need to stop being lazy.
Maybe, hex and shex? If a multiple shex can have their own PoI in one hex, then distinguishing between the two becomes important, because the whole hex is still the property of the settlement at the center. I believe this is the case, since the whole concept of the shex arose from the desire to allow more granular conquests, to prevent a war from being "all or nothing." Nihimon can probably find the what I'm thinking of ;)