by DaniAngione » Sat Dec 31, 2016 6:57 am With a new world fast approaching and siege/claim mechanics once again on the table, I've felt the need to try and contribute somehow.
I'm not an expert on the subject: yes, I admit it. I've never really sieged or raided anyone (except inactive claims). I was sieged before though, and I know how hard it can be to lose a lot of stuff. For that reason I conducted a brief brainstorm and discussion with more 'specialized' individuals
and so I came up with a couple of ideas that perhaps might not be so bad.Of course, I shall leaving the judging to our godly overseers, Jorb & Loftar;
But feel free to comment and suggest stuff or point out flaws (I'm sure there are many) and such
First of all, a brief outlook on the fundamentals of "sieging" and "raiding" and why it is so difficult to find the right balance - a struggle Haven has faced since its conception.
- Sieging can't be so easy; People shouldn't be able to lose everything overnight without having a chance to prevent it. This is rather relative, though. Some people can only play a few hours/day. Some people can play a lot more. How to balance that?
- Sieging can't be so difficult; If costly and difficult enough, sieging becomes such an endeavour that it's not worth it. Same thing as above also applies here. How "dedicated" to the game a group must be to be able to successfully siege a settlement?
- There are flawed mechanics that allows both attackers and defenders to "outsmart" the expected gameplay; attackers can take advantage of several techniques to quickly take down the defenses of a village. (walled in siege weapons; multiple weapons; etc...) and defenders can take advantage of the way the game works to defend themselves and their property better (alt vaulting; logging off; etc...)
- In summary, all things considered, "raiding" becomes a very broken mechanic. Unless both groups are willing to go for a fight, it's a matter of who outsmarts who and if it's even worth to go through all that for loot that might not even be there. The result is that most times sieging then becomes a way to obliterate the defenders entirely by destroying everything. This is effective (in terms of war) but highly unhealthy for the game since a completely ruined village and its industry will often result in players leaving the game until the next world, &c, &c... since that is far more damaging than losing a character.
Taking that into consideration, we can come up with some points about how would a "working" siege mechanic be:
- Sieges must be punishing to both the attackers and defenders, but not punishing enough for the losers to give up on the game. Which means that total base destruction is not a nice thing but having no loot whatsoever isn't either.
- Sieges must be as difficult as their intentions - and here's where the most important thing about this idea will focus: there must be a comprehensive difference between RAIDS meant to set back your enemies and gain an advantage and ATTACKS meant to completely destroy the enemy. The latter should, arguably, be far more difficult while making the first one easier will increase the amount of battles/action in the world.
- Minor raids should be profitable enough for them to be worthy - which means that somehow things like alt vaults must be mitigated.
- And finally, the idea itself must be as failproof as possible - to ensure that all those points are respected - so obviously exploitable things like "invulnerable structures" and such are not an option.
That's the basic logic that led me to this idea... So now, without further ado:
"Raiding!" System
It is more simple than it looks like. The ultimate goal is clear: To have a clear distinction between RAIDING - a lesser aggression that is profitable and slows down your enemy - and the complete DESTRUCTION of your enemy.
The problem right now is that ANY successful siege can completely destroy your enemy. So it can't be easy - which makes it usually not worth the trouble.
Please note that all of this only apply to claims with presence/authority - which means that abandoned settlements can be fully sacked as usual - but for active places, things change a bit:
First of all, the "Under Siege" status
This is a "status" that would apply to a village/claim whenever it starts to get damage. The basic idea here is to mitigate a few counter-siege measures. So what would the "Under Siege" status do?
- Prevent the building of certain new structures. If a village is under siege, it can't build smelters, buildings, tar kilns etc... Anything large or strong enough to be used as walls/barricades.
- Prevent the teleportation to hearthfires for people inside the "Under Siege" claim/area. If you're outside or far away, you can travel back. But if you're inside, you can't travel away. That is to prevent alt vaults that flee through HF port instead of charterstones, since they already become "unusable" after your shield is down to a certain level.
- Prevent the disappearance of characters that log out after the "Under Siege" status is applied. However, they can't be killed either - they can be knocked down and looted - that way you can still "survive" by logging out but you can't hide stuff by doing so anymore. If you log into an alt and get all your gold bars, the alt will remain there - as if red handed - to be knocked out and looted. A character knocked out like that can't be lifted and arguably their equipment should not be able to be stolen as well - only inventory - but that's debatable. Characters that were already offline when the siege started - and didn't come online - will remain offline as usual. So Master Key alt vaults (for example) can be protected.
The idea here is basically: the moment someone starts to attack you, there's no safe way to take anything or anyone away. You can either spare lives and hide/logout (being just knocked out if anything) or fight back and try to prevent the looting.
Now this sounds very punishing the way raiding currently works... But then we come to the second, and most important part:
The "Raiding!" Buff
Just like the defending settlement get a "status", the attacking rules are also changed. This is done through an analogue of the "Visitor" Buff system, called the "Raiding!" Buff.
How it works:
Whenever a siege weapon finishes its work and the wall belongs to an active (with presence/authority) claim, instead of destroying the wall as it normally would, it changes one tile of the wall (the one that was damaged enough to be destroyed) to a "Breached Wall" tile. A "Breached Wall" is just like a gate - it can be passed through - but when you enter a settlement through a breach you gain a different buff instead of Visitor: the "Raiding!" buff.
The "Raiding Buff" is basically a Visitor buff that allows you to commit crimes - but following certain guidelines:
- You MAY attack players/animals freely.
- You MAY steal from containers, dead and knocked down bodies - but you are limited to your inventory space AND you can not drop items on the ground - only place them back. That is to prevent the intentional destruction of property by throwing it on the ground so it despawns. You may LOOT, but not destroy what you are not taking.
- You MAY destroy stuff, but... not all stuff. You may lift and move things that are liftable - to get them out of the way, &tc - but not destroy them. So you cannot destroy cupboards and other containers to drop all the stuff on the ground - as you can notice, there's no way to drop stuff from containers on the ground - What you CAN destroy are fixed things: smelters, ovens, kilns, presses... However, when destroyed, they do not disappear. Just like the breached wall, they turn into a "destroyed" state (i.e: "destroyed smelter") which is PASSABLE but can be easily repaired to become, once again, a functional structure. This is important for two reasons: The first is that being destroyable to become passable will prevent kilns and such being used as invencible walls/barricades. The second is that not being permanently destroyed will allow the losers to rebuild far more easily, not losing the will to play the game. Being sieged will become a setback - not complete obliteration. For interesting gameplay value, "repaired" structures could have a "drying" time of like 12 hours (or more) - so it acts like a temporary damage to your enemy's industry: strike quickly and raid their precious crucibles and you get a few hours of advantage over their progression, for example.
- You MAY leave/teleport away with some liftables - anvils, looms, &c... Basically stuff that have quality and so might be interesting to steal.
And finally, we have the "Raiding Weariness":
This is mostly a temporary/placeholder name. I couldn't come up with anything better since it's almost 4 AM
- Stealing items will increase a "Raiding Weariness" status on your character, to the point that you may only go through the Breached Wall and loot a few times. The amount of "Raiding Weariness" acquired for each item stolen may vary according to stats and skills and the items themselves. This is to prevent "raiding alts", a fresh or low developed character shouldn't be able to steal much - if anything - before having 100% of weariness. Likewise, the time needed to recover this weariness can be reduced through better relevant stats/skills and perhaps some kind of item equivalent to Hearthwood leaves, but far more precious & rare.
- Destroying stuff will not increase "Raiding Weariness". This is to prevent barriers of structures to intentionally lower the raider's weariness. Since any destroyed structure can be repaired to a functional state again, this is not an issue anymore. So ONLY stealing items will increase the weariness.
- Another thing that might factor into the "Raiding Weariness" and add an extra tactical layer to base building is the raiders' entrance: a "Breached Gate" might reduce the amount of weariness per stolen item in comparison to "Breached Walls" - making attacks againt gates more profitable but also more predictable by the defenders, that can have a strategy prepared for that. Will you attack any of the sides or face the front gate?
- The dynamics of "Raiding Weariness" could create a whole new set of items and skills and things like gildings and equipment that could start to create more evident visual differences between characters intended for certain activities, increasing the tensions and social dynamics on encounters, visits, etc... Just like the Bandit's mask kind of does already: it makes people uneasy when you wonder why is that stranger wearing a mask that makes it difficult for you to memorize them?
Siege Weapons & Time
All that said, here's an overview of how could the siege times be balanced:
With less risk of "Losing everything" for defenders and more gain for attackers, this kind of raid could be balanced to 8~16 hours (depending on type of wall/claim) or even less; while different siege weapons - like a Trebuchet - could work like sieges currently work (allowing the complete destruction of a settlement) but have higher times: 24+ hours, becoming exceptions only to be used on serious wars between larger factions.
Final Considerations
With the "Under Siege" status for defenders and the "Raiding!" buff for attackers, plus the "Raiding Weariness", this is what is aimed:
- More activity by allowing raids to happen more frequently and quickly than sieges currently do, being rewarding for the winners but no so punishing for the defeated.
- The mitigation of some common tactics to hide loot and such, making raids profitable and strategically interesting (temporarily halting the industry of the enemy)
- The prevention of the creation of invencible walls and barricades by allowing "destroyed" structures to be passable but able to be repaired, instead of destroying them entirely (bad for defenders) or making them invulnerable (bad for attackers).
- A natural consequence of Risk x Benefit: for example, since loot will be per individual, it becomes more interesting to take more people into raids - but also more risky if you are defeated.
- In summary, the idea is to create the said comprehensive difference between tactical raids and intentional, utter destruction of settlements (like said above) and by creating that difference, making raids more profitable, fun and not so punishing, so players don't feel frustrated for losing everything - which eventually causes a lot of people to abandon the game.
The aim here is to transform the "siege" into an interesting and engaging gameplay event rather than a fearsome and broken thing that people will always try to avoid at all costs since it ultimately means losing everything, without removing entirely the option to do that - if you're at war and it's necessary - but making it so it's not the rule for everyone, especially the more peaceful or newer parts of the community that are more prone to abandon the game after such frustration.
That's it!
Phew, that was long... Well, like I said... I don't expect it to be perfect, it's not - I do think it's an interesting discussion though; and there might be some interesting concepts like non-permanently destroyable objects...
So... FIre at will!
