Into the Breach!

[Granger]

In general it seems to be agreed on that sieges need to be easier to make them fun (and feasible) for an attacker, while on the other hand it's likely that most will agree that an easier siege mechanic also needs to be fun (and not game ending) for a defender. Currently sieges suffer from being digital/boolean, either they succeed and the result is a completely destroyed place or they fail and no damage (at all) to what's behind the wall is done. The former outcome currently requires sieges to be hard (which makes them infrequent) to not fill the world with burning ruins and the forum with rage-quits.

I propose we throw some ideas around how to overcome this, with the goal to come up with something that ends the current boolean outcome (defended or fully destroyed) to reach a more fun siege mechanic (for all audiences) where success can be achieved easier but / since as it wouldn't be completely destructive to the target.

Possibly breaking walls in siege could (instead of cascading delete them) create a 'Breach' that allows entering the inside but (similar how gates apply visitor) applies a debuff that limits the total amount of damage that can be inflicted on the inside (tracked for that breach, not per character that goes through it)?

Could something like allow analog (non digital as mentioned above) results for sieges and through this allow making sieging quicker/easier (and thus more frequent) while at the same time keeping it reasonable for the affected settlements (as they don't get fully destroyed)? If not, what could work toward the stated goal while being palatable to both sides of the wall?

[Ardennesss]

Possibly breaking walls in siege could (instead of cascading delete them) create a 'Breach' that allows entering the inside but (similar how gates apply visitor) applies a debuff that limits the total amount of damage that can be inflicted on the inside (tracked for that breach, not per character that goes through it)?

No matter how you implement this or track the "damage", people will find a way to abuse it. If you track per character, then alts will be used to spread it out. If you track per claim, then the defender can just place enough obstacles in the way of everything "valuable" that you hit the damage cap before you've actually done anything meaningful.

[Aceb]

While I somewhat like the idea, I'm afraid it might not fit...

How do we declare how much a breach could inflict damage?
How do we determine how quick it is to make a breach?

My questions comes from just simple reasons:
- It won't stop safe palis.
- It will be far too easy to inflict a bigger damage than siege itself (by destroying a field if it's not large enough or stealing precious tools / destroying vital equipment, if You know where to drill) and etc. etc., which would basically mean to make a very large multiple, for example, clay kilns to try to counter this in a way or several fields... etc. etc.
- It mostly makes it fun for attacker, not so very fun for defender, assuming it's going to be a quick faster siege

Unless You limit it to be able to make a breach only if at least 1 character of village / p-claim must be online (outlaw not included), to allow breach to even happen? (defender acquiring special warning when breach is about to happen)

[wonder-ass]

a lonely hermit shouldnt be able to protect itself against 10/20 angry faction members. so make sieging realm based if a hermit gets raided it hurts the realm so people controlling the realm have a reason to go out and help lonely hermits from getting hurt from other angry factions.

nidbanes could also get some more work like being able to call upon nidbanes to defend your small hermitage against a group of other people to kinda balance it out.
nidbanes would have same stats as the attackers. tho how nidbanes are rn they are pretty crappy...

working to get the resources should take long not the siege itself imo kinda like how decay works on brimstone but expanded.

[SaltyCrate]

For anyone interested, here is somewhat old idea which explores this concept:
http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=52611

I raised a number of questions/problems in that thread, to which I unfortunately have not got an answer. Some of them only apply to the specifics of that proposal, but some I believe to be still relevant to abstract concept of breach. Here they are:

• How does "Breach" interact with visitor debuff? Can you or can you not get visitor debuff while you are raiding? If visitor continues to work as usual, then the breach itself is pointless for obvious reasons (as there would be more gates further inside).
• How does "Breach" interact with mineholes? If while breaching you can enter mineholes (assuming visitor debuff won't prevent you) and get off the claim it can potentially lead you to bypass "breach" restrictions.
• How does "Breach"-ing characters bypass any walls past the first one? I find it hard to imagine that you will be able to conduct a successful siege (even some easier version), while under restrictions of breaching. Therefore it will simply lead to the "all villages must have 2 (3, 4, 5...) separate layers of walls" meta.
• Finally, regardless of how damage limits are done, there is the fact that certain 1% percent of the items inside usual viilages contribute 99% of total value. Let's assume that under most strict limitations you are allowed to only steal one single piece of item from breached viilage. The smithy's hammer (made from 10 times critted metal or somesuch) still makes an attractive choice and will be considered sizable loss to defenders. (And I suspect there will be sidetracking to how metal spiralling is bad idea and should be changed and yadda yadda, but please don't it is irrelevant to the point and the topic) Seeds, which were carefuly selected for a long time, are also possibility. Master keys even, should defenders forgot to switch back to "hold all keys on an alt" concept. Naturally, if the limits are more lenient then actual damage done would be even higher.

There may exist flawless (or acceptably flawed) solutions to these problems and I would like to know of them (and try to poke new holes in those solutions). But right now I am not seeing it working.

If not, what could work toward the stated goal while being palatable to both sides of the wall?

I don't have answer to this. I, in fact, seen and discussed in the past many various siege system ideas (I have some interest in the topic) and have yet to see satisfactory one. So I welcome discussions which could lead to one being developed, and I hope you would not think of me being overly negative.

[Potjeh]

Yay, more convoluted mechanics and special cases.

[Pan_w_okularach]

Yay, more convoluted mechanics and special cases.

This. Also, whats wrong with good old leveling the entire village to the ground? Sounds to me, under the disguise of caring for sieges to be 'fun' and not 'boolean' what he really wants is to turn it into some meaningless activity, where I as a raider if I'm lucky get to enter an enemy base through the 'breach' steal some leftovers and fuck off. But it's not what it's all about, little Granger, sieging is about causing damage not petty thievery.

[Granger]

Fine then, let's keep things as they are so we can keep enjoying the 'dead game' chants in the 'wipe now' topic.

[Pan_w_okularach]

grow up

[Ardennesss]

grow up