Goblin Squad Member
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In a nutshell, I'm worried about spending a lot of time and effort during the hours you and your buddies are able to game to build a settlement only to have it torn down by monsters / hostile PCs while most of the team is asleep or at work in RL.
Any kind of workaround anticipated for this? (or are you generally expected to 1) have no life in order to constantly monitor the settlement at all times or 2) have a chartered company / kingdom that has enough manpower to watch the place around the clock? i.e., it's either multinational or there are a bunch of ppl who login on different "shifts" to keep watch)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Tearing down a settlement should be a long, expensive, and difficult process. Not something one would do over night.
Also, Lee has confirmed groups can specify what time of day their NPC guards will be weakest.
That being said you and a few buddies is probably not enough people to have your own settlement. You should form a chartered company and join a settlement if you don't want to recruit more people, and having a kingdom at your back would be helpful even if you do.
If you are good aligned you should check out the player kingdom: The Empyrean Order.
We recruit companies and settlements as well as players, and allow them to retain a lot of their own identity.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Agreed. You own village should not be something you right-click to victory, but nor should it be some sort of Herculean Effort either once it's up and running.
A village that reaches a certain point, you've got guards, walls, a well, a working farm and smithy and alchemist ... is pretty much self-sufficient, the only things that can really hurt it now are
>An army of other players
>A Dragon
>Act of God(s)
Also, Chartered Companies might specialise in building villages, charging a princely sum for their efforts, but in the doing so, build ties with the other, more militant Chartered Companies who might lack the required skills.
This allows Chartered Companies/Guilds the ability to progress in the way that's most fun for them without having to dedicate several weeks of their lives to learning how to build structures, and once the Village reaches the basic 'cut off point' for not needing it's hand held every five minutes, the Chartered Company can now start to actively upgrade any 'weak points' they may have identified after the last round of Bandit Attacks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@OP: Lee Hammock was kind enough to provide a comment on this subject in the thread: NPC law enforcement in PC settlement?
So, we've got an idea on this front, but like all ideas this is not implemented so may not survive contact with the code. So many good ideas are killed in such conflicts.
Cont'd:To give you some background, each hex and settlement at it's heart has a set of Development Indexes. These are effectively ability scores for the hex; instead of Intelligence you have Civilization, instead of Charisma you have Morale, etc. These vary from 1-1000. These are advanced by dealing with threats in the hex, building structures in your settlement, acquiring artifacts, etc. The higher your development indexes, the better your settlement, the more and higher level structures you can build, the better your settlement runs, etc.The leader of a settlement can set a PvP window, during which time their NPC guards get drastically less numerous, thus providing a window for outsiders to attack without having to worry much about the NPC guards. If the settlement does not have a PvP window, it's development indexes can never go above 200 (so if you have a small just starting out settlement you can keep your PvP protection up full time to allow settlements to get some time to build up and get their feet under them before they start getting attacked). This means your settlement is safer from PvP, but is really going to be limited in what it can do.
As players set a larger and larger PvP window for their settlement, their development index limit increases. The settlement gets to set the window, so if they are open for PvP 4 hours a day they get to choose those four hours so they don't have to worry about being up at 4 AM just to defend their territory from some guys in another time zone. Eventually to get the highest development indexes you have to be open to PvP 24 hours a day, or at least a substantial portion thereof. We'll have to see how it works out.
During your PvP window your NPC guards will be present, but in far fewer numbers than outside the window so you will need your players there if you are attacked. Meanwhile outside the PvP window the guards will be numerous enough that attacking the settlement will be extremely difficult if its player population shows up to defend it, but it is possible.
Player settlements will never have the equivalents to wardens, auto detecting crime and such. Though a paladin at the main gate detecting evil on everyone who comes in, players could totally do that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I get the feeling that it's more of a mechanic that would require you to have several members of that settlement online at once. If I've got teamchat running and I'm Bob the Smith sitting in town beating things with hammers and I see fifty guys in armor charging straight for me, I'm going to start babbling into my headset/sending PMs. Available players would (I hope!) come rushing home to see off the enemy.
But from a realism standpoint, this doesn't bother me too much. It sounds like dismantling a settlement isn't something that can be done overnight - maybe buildings get damaged and stuff gets stolen (a la a raid), but barring a full scale army arriving bent on destruction I'll still wake up to find my town there. I'll be angry and frustrated and rebuild, but I'll work very hard to find out who did it and ruin their everything for always. I imagine there are several other groups out there more than willing to help. TEO seems to specialize in helping the under-dogs against bad guys. The Keepers of the Circle would be glad to send guards and units to help out (and them I can speak for! :P).
I also imagine advancing your settlement will take time. If you need to be open to PVP for six hours a day to hit 500, I imagine you'll only stay open that long once you hit 500. When you've reached the cap for how far your hex can go, you raise the ceiling. Rinse and repeat. By the time you're worrying about being open 24/7, your settlement probably has scores of players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So basically if you advance past 200 you have to have actual players standing around doing nothing just in case someone wants to come in and attack?
What a FUN game mechanic that will be !!!
That would be one way to do it.
In Darkfall where raids were a constant threat we used the factors already working in our favor. Major cities were constantly occupied by players who were crafting, trading, or practicing combat.
Many of these players were already geared and ready for combat as they went about their business. Those who weren't could quickly access "ready bags." Bags filled with all the gear and consumables needed for PVP. If the city was attacked those prepared to fight could stall the attackers while others donned their ready bags. Also anyone out hunting or gathering in the area around the city could be recalled back to defend it.
So the better way to do it is to go about your business as usual but know what to do in case of an attack.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So basically if you advance past 200 you have to have actual players standing around doing nothing just in case someone wants to come in and attack?
What a FUN game mechanic that will be !!!
No. It means that as your settlement gets larger, more advanced, and more powerful, the window of risk for being attacked gets wider. It's a well-thought out scaling mechanic that means very weak, vulnerable settlements can limit risks, and then only be exposed to more risk as they are able to bear risk.
So, yeah. It will be a fun mechanic :) (and a pretty smart one if you can think it through!)
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Goblin Squad Member
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So basically if you advance past 200 you have to have actual players standing around doing nothing just in case someone wants to come in and attack?
What a FUN game mechanic that will be !!!
I don't think it will quite be like that, I think it is more designed that the town would have some adventures in it, or maybe just the crafters and inn keeper types. if you come under attack, they would call out on a private channel or vent or whatever and the "main fighting body" will return from whereever they are to help defend. The idea GW is trying to put out is that once your settlement is large enough to have more people online during hours to defend the settlement, you can open up the PVP window and grow your town more. I am assuming they are using a finite amount of NPC guards, which explains why they can't guard larger settlements 24 hours a day. This makes sence and also deters people from growing large settlements by themselves or with a smaller guild/clan/whatever. Large cities and settlements should have many many people in them, which means they would simulate a real town, busy peak hours and died down times where NPC gaurds take over watch.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Summersnow, I think there are probably a lot of people who want PFO to be more like SWG, where it was possible for a single player to build up a town. I actually am very sympathetic to that. I think it would be cool if we could eventually build Hamlets that offered very limited services such as rudimentary processing/crafting facilities, but which were basically undefended.
However, the Settlement system is much more than just building a town.
From Goblinworks Blog: Put It in Writing:
I think there will be many more people who want to run a Settlement than there will be Settlements. The difference will be which of those people are good enough social engineers to put together a large enough group that is cohesive enough to take and hold territory.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think it would be cool if we could eventually build Hamlets that offered very limited services such as rudimentary processing/crafting facilities, but which were basically undefended.
Small groups/solo players can build hideouts, right? Maybe it would be reasonable for small-medium groups to maintain very small locations as a hub. Instead of trying to grow a full fledged town for eight players, maybe a tower in the wilds or a solitary hunting lodge or something similar - a single or small number of limited buildings for outliers, perhaps with the potential to grow into a settlement over time if more people flock to it. It would be interesting, to me, to see a lone Wizard's tower get joined by a small group of farmers who then need loggers who need miners and so on until a defacto need for a town organically arises. That may (sounds to me) be really complicated to implement though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Small groups/solo players can build hideouts, right?
That's true. They can also build Inns. While that will satisfy part of the desire to build something, I don't think there's any plans to allow any crafting/training facilities in Hideouts or Inns.
But reading over your post, I realize that what I'm hoping for is probably exactly what Ryan has in mind with low-level Settlements. Funny how that keeps happening :)
So basically if you advance past 200 you have to have actual players standing around doing nothing just in case someone wants to come in and attack?
What a FUN game mechanic that will be !!!
Pretty simple logistics, as your settlement grows in population, your number of players online at any given time grows as well, this is a one server game, so finding people from various time zones to be on to help defend is not much of an issue at that point. not to mention its very highly unlikely you will have a random army beating down your doors randomly, you will have some warning before it happens. might not be enough time to prepare but most likely enough time to get everyon back to town to defend it.
They do seem to keep giving us the things we want before we ask for them...
its almost like the dev team is aware of the wishes of the player base and actualy care to make something we want. kind of like they did thier research. Almost as if they know what they are doing. Oh wait, THEY DO :) YAY!
All joking aside now, GW has really impressed me. alot of the systems i have always dreamed of being in place in a mmo they are actualy trying to make a reality.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All joking aside now, GW has really impressed me. alot of the systems i have always dreamed of being in place in a mmo they are actualy trying to make a reality.
Agreed. I played EVE because I wanted a vibrant in-game economy - this promises to be a LOT of what I've been looking for. I literally had a couple dozen "I HAD THAT IDEA!" moments while reading the dev blog. I think a lot of us have. =]
All joking aside now, GW has really impressed me. alot of the systems i have always dreamed of being in place in a mmo they are actualy trying to make a reality.Agreed. I played EVE because I wanted a vibrant in-game economy - this promises to be a LOT of what I've been looking for. I literally had a couple dozen "I HAD THAT IDEA!" moments while reading the dev blog. I think a lot of us have. =]
Aint that the truth. I already told my gf im quitting all my other mmos for this one when it gets going. I have been bouncing around between wow, eq2, DCUO, COH/COV until they got shut down, Rift, Lotro, and swtor for so long now its not even funny, when i first started playing MMO's it was UO, then FFXI and SWG. I played swg religiously until the nge hit I have been mmo hoping ever since then trying to recapture the feel of uo and swg to no avail. Figured i would be one of those people that would jump all over eve but it never really appealed to me after watching some lets play videos showcasing the combat. Found the space combat to be far to slow and boring for my tastes.
They could have it similar .to DAOC's fronter keeps. To where certain building levels automatically spawn X number of NPC guards. That way the players aren't totally alone trying to repel an attacking force, be it group size, guild size or just an assault by critters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Figured i would be one of those people that would jump all over eve but it never really appealed to me after watching some lets play videos showcasing the combat. Found the space combat to be far to slow and boring for my tastes.
For me, my interest in EVE was mostly economic. I enjoyed that aspect for sure, but I ended up not playing because I wasn't as immersed in the setting and because I was running mostly solo. Neither will be the case for me in PFO. =] I'm looking forward to this, particularly since early enrollment means crowdforging.
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Aint that the truth. I already told my gf im quitting all my other mmos for this one when it gets going. I have been bouncing around between wow, eq2, DCUO, COH/COV until they got shut down, Rift, Lotro, and swtor for so long now its not even funny, when i first started playing MMO's it was UO, then FFXI and SWG. I played swg religiously until the nge hit I have been mmo hoping ever since then trying to recapture the feel of uo and swg to no avail. Figured i would be one of those people that would jump all over eve but it never really appealed to me after watching some lets play videos showcasing the combat. Found the space combat to be far to slow and boring for my tastes.
Yes, I'm playing Eve right now simply because everything else is just lame and boring to me. PFO seems like it will have so much of what I've been wanting in a single game. I'm quite excited about it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the answer here, at least for well established settlements, is NOT to allow one attack that destroys the entire settlement at once.
Rather, I think it should be that a settlement is destroyed/conquered over a series of multiple attacks. Each attack would degrade/damage the settlements facilities and abilities to defend itself...making it more vulnerable.
You could also have players build settlement improvement/structures that make it more robust and durable to attacks.
Settlement defences could be repaired/fixed over time but not in sufficient time to keep pace with successfull regular attacks.
Basicaly you want a war of attrition, so you don't have a Guild build a large succesfful settlement and miss logging in one day to discover that their settlement has been wiped off the map....and you don't want to get into a situation where players have to be "on call" to be pulled away from thier RL commitments just to be part of something fun and significant in a GAME. At the same time you don't want things so indestructable that attacking is boring and you feel like you NEVER can accomplish anything.
I think allowing each attack to degrade some level of defence and maybe have a cool-down timer before the next level can be degraded but also rewarding the attackers for each successfull attack in addition, maybe by making away with some percentage of the settlements wealth on each successfull attack. You also want some way for the defenders to mitigate, to a degree, how many attacks it takes before they get knocked out....working to improve a settlements automated defences seems reasonable. This shouldn't be a complete substitute for active defence...just increase the number of successfull attacks it takes to knock out the settlement. Anyway, that's along the lines of what I would like to see in settlement warfare. YMMV.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think allowing each attack to degrade some level of defense and maybe have a cool-down timer before the next level can be degraded but also rewarding the attackers for each successful attack in addition, maybe by making away with some percentage of the settlements wealth on each successful attack. You also want some way for the defenders to mitigate, to a degree, how many attacks it takes before they get knocked out....working to improve a settlements automated defenses seems reasonable. This shouldn't be a complete substitute for active defense...just increase the number of successful attacks it takes to knock out the settlement. Anyway, that's along the lines of what I would like to see in settlement warfare. YMMV.
I like that idea. It makes sense to me. Historically, quick raids (show up, no one (or not enough of a defending force) is there to stop you, burn some buildings loot some more and get out before the defending forces can assemble and hit you back. I'm torn between requiring factions to declare war first (prevent abuse) and letting them launch sneak attacks on your settlement. As a leader, I wouldn't want to have to let you know my army is inbound before smashing my way towards your capitol, burning everything between there and my start point. As a player, I do not want to log in and let out a stream of expletives that eight months of effort have evaporated because I had my anniversary weekend and missed all the hullaballoo. So having settlement destruction/take over be a long-term time thing makes sense, even if it sometimes sacrifices realism.
The second advantage of it taking longer periods of time to destroy/claim a settlement is it gives the defenders more time to call on allies/purchase mercenaries to help. Taking an established town and holding it should be difficult, but not so difficult that only the largest militaries can manage it. Finding that balance is not something I envy the devs doing.
~Dictated by Hroderich Gottfrei, Warden of Steel and Gold, to Gromovoii Malchikh, Keeper of Crystal
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the answer here, at least for well established settlements, is NOT to allow one attack that destroys the entire settlement at once.
You probably remember this, but for the new people, I'd like to point out the old thread The Art of War. The most interesting thing (to me) that came out of that thread was the idea of having NPC Armies that had to move - very slowly - over the map to get to the Settlement being attacked. This creates a lot of interesting dynamics that Andius points out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that tearing down a settlement should take at least 75% as much effort as building it. Building the equipment necessary to take down a settlement should require facilities only available in another settlement. Taking the fight to an enemy means leaving yourself more open to counter-attack. Living on the move without a settlement of your own to guard would leave you as a raider, capable of causing damage, but not destruction. Grabbing some valuables in the midst of confusion and heading for the hills means you're more likely to survive, and the settlement is more likely to obtain new valuables to target in future raids.
As to a PVP defence window, I don't think it should range from 0-24 hours, but more like 0-12, and those times could be divided up. Even if a settlement has people in every time zone, a person at work can't be expected to be 'on call' to put their real life on hold to come save their virtual house.
Another possibility is to have players sign up for guard duty during hours that they're offline. The characters would periodically show up at various guard stations, and if an alarm is raised, then all available player-guards show up unless the player is actually logged in elsewhere. The server plays them with whatever scripting is appropriate to their skills, equipment, and selected behaviours.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another interesting idea, I think, would be the ability to be kept in the loop at all times regardless of whether you're in a position to login and act or not. This could be achieved through many forms of modern communication - SMS, email, fb, etc.
That way, even if you can't act, perhaps you can ask your buddies to login and help instead.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As to a PVP defence window, I don't think it should range from 0-24 hours, but more like 0-12, and those times could be divided up. Even if a settlement has people in every time zone, a person at work can't be expected to be 'on call' to put their real life on hold to come save their virtual house.
Another possibility is to have players sign up for guard duty during hours that they're offline. The characters would periodically show up at various guard stations, and if an alarm is raised, then all available player-guards show up unless the player is actually logged in elsewhere. The server plays them with whatever scripting is appropriate to their skills, equipment, and selected behaviours.
I think the idea of a broken up window is the best one - We might have players that can cover 0400-0830, 1000-1400, 1600-2330, but no one to take the others - I'd rather it be more shorter blocks of time than one long one, personally.
Having players able to be NPC guards when not logged in is something I am more than okay with and would love, but I can see where many players would not like that option/facing guards of player-strength controlled by the server. I would assume that item-loss/death penalties would still apply, which (again) I'm okay with, but others might find a nuisance.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another interesting idea, I think, would be the ability to be kept in the loop at all times regardless of whether you're in a position to login and act or not. This could be achieved through many forms of modern communication - SMS, email, fb, etc.
That way, even if you can't act, perhaps you can ask your buddies to login and help instead.
That does open up potential for causing just enough trouble to spam people with messages, causing them to turn off the feature, and then the feature may as well not exist. Everyone will feel justified in ignoring the messages for whatever reasons of their own, because surely others are responding and taking care of the situation...
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Goblin Squad Member
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My only concern with breaking up the raid window too much is what happens if the raid is still ongoing at the end of that window? Does a wave of NPC guards show up as reinforcements and drive out the raid, or do they not show up until things have stabilized? If they do show up, it may mean having a number of small windows is a huge advantage over one long one, since it improves the odds of an influx of support mid-fight. If they don't show up til peace is restored, it means that seige warfare can require your players to be on all hours since your PVP window is held open.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Dario, that is a good point you bring up. Now granted, it is possible and feesable to have reinforcements show up mid-fight, but I agree something would need to be done to prevent abuse of this system by doing as you describe and do very small chucks to improve the odds that it will happen. I would recommend haveing it be shifts of a minimum timeframe, like 4-8 hours or so. that way it is universal and everyone will know to expect it. After all, the attackers do do something simular, if me and some friends start an assult on a settlement, and mid-fight the rest of my people get home from work and join the fight, it is kinda like having the influx of NPC gaurds come due to a "Shift-change."
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Goblin Squad Member
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That does open up potential for causing just enough trouble to spam people with messages, causing them to turn off the feature, and then the feature may as well not exist. Everyone will feel justified in ignoring the messages for whatever reasons of their own, because surely others are responding and taking care of the situation...Another interesting idea, I think, would be the ability to be kept in the loop at all times regardless of whether you're in a position to login and act or not. This could be achieved through many forms of modern communication - SMS, email, fb, etc.
That way, even if you can't act, perhaps you can ask your buddies to login and help instead.
Well I am thinking there would be ways to customize the amount of notification (i.e., only do it once per attack etc.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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There could just be a limited number of hours that the NPC guards (not gaurds) would work per month, so while players are online and willing to watch the town, they can put the guards off-duty to save hours. If a player is there and summons the guards, they take 5-10 minutes to show up, and stay on duty a minimum of one hour. Richer settlements could buy more powerful guards, more numerous guards, and more guard hours.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Dario, that is a good point you bring up. Now granted, it is possible and feesable to have reinforcements show up mid-fight, but I agree something would need to be done to prevent abuse of this system by doing as you describe and do very small chucks to improve the odds that it will happen. I would recommend haveing it be shifts of a minimum timeframe, like 4-8 hours or so. that way it is universal and everyone will know to expect it. After all, the attackers do do something simular, if me and some friends start an assult on a settlement, and mid-fight the rest of my people get home from work and join the fight, it is kinda like having the influx of NPC gaurds come due to a "Shift-change."
The concern with the "shift change" approach is that the NPC guards are supposed to make it much more difficult to attack, meaning when they show up, the attackers might as well pack it up. My initial thought at a solution would be to have the NPC arrival be staggered out. So when you window ends, instead of getting the full NPC force, if the fight is still going, you get like, 20%. And you get another 20% every 10-15 minutes until you're at full strength. That way you've still got the defenses against a seige, but folks attacking don't end up with an "if we don't take this in 5 minutes, we insta-lose."
I think the other question, too, is going to be how to tell when a settlement is in it's PVP window. Is it going to be something I can just look up, or will I have to watch the settlement for a while and see if I can tell when the guard force is reduced?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the other question, too, is going to be how to tell when a settlement is in it's PVP window. Is it going to be something I can just look up, or will I have to watch the settlement for a while and see if I can tell when the guard force is reduced?
I actually wouldn't mind the latter. The rotations of the guards for a settlement should not be public knowledge imo. You should need to have either a mole on the inside to give the details or perhaps hire a spy or spies to do a reconaissance mission, which would be pretty cool.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am 100% for requiring scouts or espionage to figure out PvP windows.
There would need to be a way of hiding the information from one's own citizens, because it would be trivially easy to plant a mole in any potential target, and unlike the real world, there's no need to get secret information out of the settlement to your spymasters. People would pass the information outside of the game, which in real-world terms would be equivalent to stepping into an alternate dimension. There would be no trace of where a leak was coming from, unless you could hide the information from everyone and figure things out by seeing which batch of false intel was acted on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Social engineering is a type of espionage. There's no reason a person would readily hand out information if directly asked by some stranger, "Hey, so when are your guards coming back on duty?" I don't necessarily think it should be terribly difficult to weasel out the information if people are sloppy, but I don't think it should be something you just right-click a settlement for.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One way to get around the Information problem (of having a spy in the Settlement who simply tells you when they're weak), is to require the attackers to tell the game that they're intending to attack at a particular time. It would be possible to require them to acquire an "Information Object" in order to be allowed to plan the attack.
I'm not sure this is the direction GW wants to go, though. They may have very good reasons for wanting it to be possible to spontaneously put together a "raid" on an enemy Settlement.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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One way to get around the Information problem (of having a spy in the Settlement who simply tells you when they're weak), is to require the attackers to tell the game that they're intending to attack at a particular time. It would be possible to require them to acquire an "Information Object" in order to be allowed to plan the attack.
I'm not sure this is the direction GW wants to go, though. They may have very good reasons for wanting it to be possible to spontaneously put together a "raid" on an enemy Settlement.
So, in addition to allowing the defenders to determine the time of the attack, the attackers also have to overcome an obstacle or face the enhanced defenses?
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, in addition to allowing the defenders to determine the time of the attack, the attackers also have to overcome an obstacle or face the enhanced defenses?
I was thinking more along the lines of "can't attack" rather than "face the enhanced defenses".
I am convinced that the way to get around the "Information Problem" is to require players to tell the game what their objectives are in order for the game to allow those objectives to be achieved. It's probably not practical for every little thing, but I think Settlement Attacks are a perfect testing ground for the general principle.
I was sure I read somewhere that there would be a time window for vulnerability to attack set by the owners to prevent that sort of situation. Have I made that up?
You didn't make it up, but it's not an either/or situation. The vulnerability window is when the NPC Guards will not be present. It will still be possible to be attacked while the NPC Guards are present, it will just be harder.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally i like persistent objectives. It gives people something to shoot for. Allows say an evil warlord to actually attempt to take over the lands by invading settlements one by one. Or a good warlord to push back the tide of evil by rallying the forces of good.
It also helps foster relationships with other settlements. Say crafting settlement A has a deal with settlements B and C to help with defense when they need it. In exchange members of settlements B and C can get access to better gear (because settlement A is crafting focused and more likely to have better crafters) at a discount. Or heck in a situation of two martial settlements they could have an alliance to help each other specifically to help with invaders.
I can see power blocs of stability where to take over one settlement you have to basically go against 3-4 settlements. With other settlements being more chaotic (in the sense that they change hands more frequently).
its a good dynamic that encourages people to work together and encourages people to compete and go into conflict.