W12 Subtopic - A Reason to Siege

[Melkior13]

Background
This suggestion was inspired by the debate surrounding the proposed W12 siege changes. The main intent is to address the issues related to the purpose of laying siege on another Hearthling's base, in the context of balancing the risk vs the reward of both protecting against and attempting a siege. The secondary intent is to provide incentive for players that enjoy the hostile aspects of the game to focus on other hostile players, while likewise dissuading them from demolishing peaceful players. Please note: This post is written with the belief that that the ability to attack, defend, and ultimately murder a fellow Hearthling is not only what makes H&H uniquely enjoyable, but it is also a necessary mechanic of this game. Please refrain from the debate surrounding PvP/non-PvP servers and the like in this thread.

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Reducing the attacker’s investment in a siege is only addressing half of the issue. The gains for the effort of the siege is the other half of the equation, and the ability to alt-vault valuables remains a problem. There needs to be other incentive to attack someone other than to annoy or destroy them.

Suggestion
Consider having an honor/notoriety system along-side the industrial grind. This system would be completely optional and would have no impact on the “70% of player base” that prefers not to take part. Players with an interest in siege and PvP, however, could strengthen their ability to siege and/or PvP, perhaps as follows:

For instance, Villages could choose to create a new type of authority idol, perhaps an “Altar of Battle”. Similar to realm buffs, this object would provide bonuses to the Hearthlings within, with the following differences:
- The benefits are combat/siege oriented, and would be strictly applied to player vs player scenarios. In other words, any UA/MC, STR/AGI/CON, armor, etc. benefits would not apply to PvE. Benefits could also be along the lines of improvements to siege mechanics (dmg, drying time, repair time, move distance, take your pick).
- The benefits would not be limited by the village or realm claim. Instead, all village members with the hearthfires located within the vclaim that has the altar would receive the buff.
- The benefits would improve slowly over time, as long as the altar is in place and untouched.
- The altar would also be a container that could hold PvP objects (perhaps skulls, or a new item like ears, badges, tokens, etc. or shards of broken altars, taken from enemies). Storing these objects in the altar would improve the benefits applied, and/or the rate the benefits improve with age. Removing these objects (either through the act of raiding and stealing them, or attempting to alt-vault the prior to a raid) would have an adverse effect on the benefits from the altar, perhaps even as severe as a temporary penalty. (Alt-vaulting to protect your PVP valuables prior to a raid is effectively conceding the fight, as you are giving up the edge that you otherwise would have in the upcoming Siege/PvP).

The players that are motivated by PVP mechanics would be rewarded in kind. Hermits and villages that opt not to build altars would be less desirable targets by default.
When inspecting a claim (instead of simply checking power level), the attackers could learn of the presence of an altar and perhaps it’s quality level. Higher quality altars would be more beneficial to ransack because they would provide better augmentation to the raiding party’s own altar. The altars themselves could be a form of trophy, bragging rights, or mockery.

This could be expanded or altered in many ways to solve part of the siege issue (or other challenges), but I hope the core concept is understood at least. Thank you for taking the time to read such a long post.

This post was moved from the World 12 Prelude thread to the more appropriate C&I forum.

[Ysh]

So I kill my alt and put his skull and ear into box that will make me more strong? This seem like strange system to me.

[Melkior13]

So I kill my alt and put his skull and ear into box that will make me more strong? This seem like strange system to me.

Good catch, Ysh. That is a flaw that would need some thought. It is my style to keep suggestions somewhat non-specific regarding the particulars of implementation so that others can contribute without unnecessary constraints. What the objects are that are placed on an altar and how they are obtained is debatable, for certain.

The issue of creating "straw-man" PvP targets via alts (even whole villages) would be a problem with most implementations of this idea, however. A potential work-around would be to make the taper the impact of low-quality skulls/ears or PvP objects such that sacrificing noob-alts provide insubstantial gains.

Perhaps a better variation of this suggested system would be to make it so that shards of a broken altar are the only object that augments altars. It would still be exploitable by creating alt-villages with alt-altars, but this would be more feasible to address, with mechanics such as:
- Altars of Battle would start at q10, regardless of input material quality, and only increase in quality slowly over time.
- Shards of broken q10 Altars would not significantly augment existing altars.
- Altars of Battle would require non-trivial materials to be built.

[Vraatjuh]

The problem with this idea, and any such system, is that factions will just completely wall of such 'altar'. Making it impossible to reach.
Alas, big factions/big villages are 'immune', while small villages/hermits don't have time for building such defences and are penalized.

[Ysh]

So I kill my alt and put his skull and ear into box that will make me more strong? This seem like strange system to me.

Good catch, Ysh. That is a flaw that would need some thought. It is my style to keep suggestions somewhat non-specific regarding the particulars of implementation so that others can contribute without unnecessary constraints. What the objects are that are placed on an altar and how they are obtained is debatable, for certain.

The issue of creating "straw-man" PvP targets via alts (even whole villages) would be a problem with most implementations of this idea, however. A potential work-around would be to make the taper the impact of low-quality skulls/ears or PvP objects such that sacrificing noob-alts provide insubstantial gains.

Perhaps a better variation of this suggested system would be to make it so that shards of a broken altar are the only object that augments altars. It would still be exploitable by creating alt-villages with alt-altars, but this would be more feasible to address, with mechanics such as:
- Altars of Battle would start at q10, regardless of input material quality, and only increase in quality slowly over time.
- Shards of broken q10 Altars would not significantly augment existing altars.
- Altars of Battle would require non-trivial materials to be built.

There is already some mechanism in this vein in game with studying skull of dead men. Reason this existing mechanism work is two reason I think:

1. Reward output is of the same type as creation input. LP from study skull is some portion of LP of the dead man.
2. Reward output is much less than creation input. It is not sense making to farm alt for skull; the man would be better off just study the curio used to create skull instead.

At least, I assume these thing are true. I have never murder powerful man for his skull to have this first hand knowledge! But as far as I can think, I think that I do not hear of men farming alt skulls, and I think that high developed skull is indeed worthy of study.

For your systems, I believe they are violating first point on this list. You are converting some resource (FEP/LP if based on quality of character, or time if based on altar duration) into some other resource (buffs). In case like this, there always will be incentive to convert from one resource to another, for men with glut of one resource and famine of other. If you want to reward some PvP activity without exploits or farms, I think prize must be created from some cost in a directly comparable way, and prize be lesser than this cost.