Prelude: World 12

[stickman]

jorb could you explain how ranged damage works now? it seems like if you are directly beside something and shoot you deal like 1-2 damage instead of full damage. so for example if i stand beside a bat which i am not in combat with and i shoot it I will do 1 or 2 damage. If i step a few steps away it seems to do the full 21 damage that my bow should deal. Is this how it works now basically no damage if you are in melee combat range of your target?

[Headshot]

Village & Personal Claims now have a "Power Level". ranging from 0 to 1.
The "Power Level" of a newly established claim increases from 0 to 1 over the course of four RL weeks. (E.g: After one week the power level is 0.25, after two weeks the power level is 0.5, and so on.)
A Battering Ram requires 24h * the Claim's Power Level of drying time before it can destroy Palisades on the claim, and 32h * the Claim's Power Level of drying time before it can destroy Brick Walls on the claim.
The stronger claim always applies in case of overlapping claims.
Anyone can find out the "Power Level" of claim by inspecting it.
The idea behind this change is to provide a meaningful establishment time for new claims, during which they are easier to attack.

This looks like good core idea, at least better then weakness windows. But with that system after claim get level 1 there is no power decay and you can't weak that claim in any way, that means after 4 weeks you will not able to ram anyone who play daily (too easy to defend). You need something that affect claim power (maybe some kind of prey or altar\war altar to increase and decrease power levels, thats just an idea). And please, can you make this power levels visible with claim colors change instead of inspects?

[APXEOLOG]

jorb I kinda like the change to siege system you did. It looks much simplier then before, and simple mechanics usually works better, then complex. At least this solves issue with sieging fresh claims pretty good.
But i think that after 4 weeks, when Power Level will reach it's peak, it should not remain constant. There should be a mechanics to deplete and restore Power Level.

For example, i would apply system like a reverse exp gain for kingdom. The rules are:

• 1. When a character have a hearth fire inside the claim, when this characrter receives EXP, certain amount will be substracted from the Power Level of the claim.
• 2. If hearth fire is inside multiple claims (personal + village for example), substraction applies to all of them.
• 3. Claim with less Power Level has priority over claim with more Power Level.
• 4. The minimum amount of Power Level for claim is calculated based on sqrt(drain velocity) (the speed in which Power Level is drained)
• 5. When minimum amount of Power Level is reached, claim automatically goes into "strengthen" mode, restoring it's Power Level to the peak (the time is constant, but faster, then initial one, around few RL days)

Key idea is to drain Power Level based on the amount of player activity. If you have many active characters inside your claim it will be drained faster, if you're a hermit which rarely visit the game - it will be drained much slower.
The Claim Power Level overlap should take the lowest one into account, because it will prevent claim stacking abuses. The minimal amount of Power Level for the claim is again based on the player activity - more activity means faster drying rams for the enemy

Points here:

• You usually want your character's HF in the safe place, inside the walls, and the walls should be covered by a claim, meaning substraction is hard to avoid (you can think of some abuses ofc, but they are not convinient)
• The more activity happen the faster drain will happen, meaning active and big villages will be 'easier' to siege, small and inactive will be harder to siege
• The minimum Power Level calculated from sqrt(drain velocity), meaning very active villages will have shrter ram drying timer, then hermits
• Since you cannot build HF under the enemy claim you cannot grief their Power Level with alts (the only abusable point is Charter Stone, but it can have special treatment)
• Since you cannot build/extend claim under enemy one, you cannot overlap claims to abuse low power level priority
• This does not resolve problem with keeping all goods in the safehouse underground with no HFs, but well... nothing is perfect

Of course proper values for the formulas should be calculated to maintain system inside the desired parameters of ram drying speed and opportunity windows.
What do you guys think? I'm pretty sure i overlooked considerable amount of abuses and downsides

[Teilur]

Key idea is to drain Power Level based on the amount of player activity. If you have many active characters inside your claim it will be drained faster, if you're a hermit which rarely visit the game - it will be drained much slower.
The Claim Power Level overlap should take the lowest one into account, because it will prevent claim stacking abuses. The minimal amount of Power Level for the claim is again based on the player activity - more activity means faster drying rams for the enemy

This way you'll punish active players for their activity and leave troll, questgiver's, abandoned or local resource claims stronger than big villages or markets. Just change "player activity" to "player inactivity" (as i suggested a little bit earlier) and add a need for constant support of current powerlevel.

[jorb]

In theory, I agree that a claim's power level should decrease by some mechanic, in fact this is precisely what we wanted to do, and what the siege window thing did. It is, however, also precisely what doesn't work well, since it is what creates the various shenanigans in terms of overlapping claims, villages within villages, and so on.

[jorb]

Will you still need a consent to overlap hostile pclaims? And if not is there still a mechanic with "personal claim age" that affects the amount of time you need to wait out if you cover it with your Village claim before you can use "Revoke Claim" ability?

1) No. 2) Yes

We retain the old, somewhat obscure, age mechanic from past worlds, quite simply.

[Mario_Demorez]

Have you ever thought about making claims that have HFs of criminals lose authority or power faster?

[jorb]

In theory, I agree that a claim's power level should decrease by some mechanic, in fact this is precisely what we wanted to do, and what the siege window thing did. It is, however, also precisely what doesn't work well, since it is what creates the various shenanigans in terms of overlapping claims, villages within villages, and so on.

[Teilur]

In theory, I agree that a claim's power level should decrease by some mechanic, in fact this is precisely what we wanted to do, and what the siege window thing did. It is, however, also precisely what doesn't work well, since it is what creates the various shenanigans in terms of overlapping claims, villages within villages, and so on.

Why not use authority mechanics? Who has more authority overlaps hostile claim, but authority drain is scaled by size of claims. I'd also suggest an exponential loss of authority if it is not replenished for some time (to bash inactive claims faster).

[Mario_Demorez]

In theory, I agree that a claim's power level should decrease by some mechanic, in fact this is precisely what we wanted to do, and what the siege window thing did. It is, however, also precisely what doesn't work well, since it is what creates the various shenanigans in terms of overlapping claims, villages within villages, and so on.

Make it where you can’t enclose another village inside another village. Before you place a banner for a village have some check to see if theirs another separate village inside the space, if there is you can’t build the banner?