The Ghost of Christmas Future, II

[Mistmonk1]

Rather than taking damage for being a criminal which is either pointless when static or op when scaled, committing crimes should reduce movement speed. Makes it possible to run away from criminals who are stronger and trying to kill you, or to catch criminals who stole from you but still gives them the ability to fight back. Higher level characters could commit more crime before noticing the effects of slow.

[TeckXKnight]

I think we disagree on what 'the issue of walls' is. If we're talking about the issue that walls are unfun and everybody is forced to have them, these ideas do address these issues.

Everyone would be forced to have guards and guard towers too. As with the screenshot I posted, when the idea was introduced in Salem, braziers (guard towers) were just as essential as walls were and they were equally unfun. If you introduce a defensive measure that is the difference between keeping your base 100% safe and losing everything overnight, then players will be forced to have it. It's why we yell at new players to build brickwalls, crossroads, key alts, foraging alts, crime alts, to ram check, and every other little thing that blocks out criminals. Because if you miss even one of those steps you lose everything if someone wants in. We'll just be adding guard towers to that list.

You're assuming all damage can be soaked. If you get X HHP damage per Y seconds per tower or something like that, it's not going to kill a decent character but it is annoying as fuck and a reason not to commit crimes unless you think you can benefit from it.

That's very much like this world's crime then. Every criminal action just gives you 1 HHP damage. The reception for this was not great, but that doesn't necessarily mean the concept is bad. The idea potentially just needs to be refined.

Is it a problem that people can defend themselves?

Kind of, yes. The impenetrable defense part is bad for a lot of aspects of the game and a big reason why walls need to be reworked. The issue being that without impenetrable defenses we have tissue paper defenses and then nothing is safe ever. I'm arguing that there needs to be a system that compromises these and allows players to do 'some' damage to an enemy instead of 'complete damage to an enemy if defenses are breached. How do you compromise these systems in a practical way though? How do you make it so going to sleep at night isn't an all or nothing gambit for whether your belongings will be there in the morning without having walls? I am the dumb and cannot figure this out myself.

You forgot armor penetration, Teck. Just because ranged weapons don't have it now doesn't mean they never will (and IMO they should).

This is true and worth its own discussion.

How about having walls that take a long time to break, but the attacker has to stay online to break them? This would give time for the defenders to come online and defend. Rams could be instant, but required to destroy palisades and bwalls, and your strength determines how long it takes to destroy the wall.

Isn't this essentially how ramming walls works now? This kind of system was an absolute nightmare to work with in worlds 4 and 5. Staying awake to guard rams for 24 hours straight was killer on morale. I only ever did it a few times though, so maybe a faction that sat there guarding their rams from alts trying to break them could contribute more to that discussion.

[Potjeh]

Reposting from Inner Party:

Yeah, missions is a great way to put it. I've only come up with escort and ambush missions, but I'm sure the devs could come up with plenty more to keep it interesting. Anyway, here's how I think the metagame of a siege should play out:
- the attackers pay a fairly large up-front cost (proportionate to target's defences) to start a siege
- a "siege meter" starts at a middle position
- attackers conduct missions to push it towards their side and defenders conduct their own missions to push it towards their own side
- if the siege meter reaches the attacker's side they can move onto the actual assault side where they can actually raze the target
- if the siege meter reaches the defender's side they can break the siege and cause the attackers to lose the investment they've made to lay the siege
- there's a limit on frequency with which you can conduct these missions so that pushing the meter from the middle to either end takes at least 24h even if the other side doesn't conduct any missions of their own
- all missions should be dangerous, ie run the risk of getting into open combat with the other side

The gist of the idea is to change base destruction from a single event to a series of smaller events spread out over time so both sides have the opportunity to push towards victory, which I think would solve the timezones issue. If both sides conduct missions only when they have the advantage (due to timezones) they'll just cancel each other out and the siege meter won't progress either way. To make real progress on the siege meter you'd also have to complete missions when you're not at peak strength, so you run a real risk of losing your combat characters. Mind you, this whole siege meter talk is meta, there doesn't have to be an actual explicit progress bar because that might feel a bit too game-y.

As for infrastructure, there's certainly room for that at the siege site, but what I really had in mind was advanced town infrastructure required to construct siege weapons. It should take a lot of time and effort to develop, so it's more of a thing you build at your homebase. The purpose of this is twofold: limiting the range in which you can destroy other bases (you have to get the siege equipment from these production facilities to the siege site with only roads to move it fast) and making the attackers expose a high investment base of theirs rather than a hearth vault they can put up in a day or two so they run a risk of a retaliation that really hurts.

Regarding M&B comparison to the second part of my post, that's fairly apt. Dunno about the weapon limitation, but you certainly shouldn't be able to do sneaky stuff like climbing over walls while you're wearing heavy armour.

Also, regarding the whole village vs personal claim thing, I think there shouldn't be any difference between them when it comes to siege. In fact, I think that using town claims to declaim personal claims should be removed, if you want a claim gone you should have to lay siege to it and destroy the claim stake.

[zacty]

Reposting from Inner Party:

Yeah, missions is a great way to put it. I've only come up with escort and ambush missions, but I'm sure the devs could come up with plenty more to keep it interesting. Anyway, here's how I think the metagame of a siege should play out:
- the attackers pay a fairly large up-front cost (proportionate to target's defences) to start a siege
- a "siege meter" starts at a middle position
- attackers conduct missions to push it towards their side and defenders conduct their own missions to push it towards their own side
- if the siege meter reaches the attacker's side they can move onto the actual assault side where they can actually raze the target
- if the siege meter reaches the defender's side they can break the siege and cause the attackers to lose the investment they've made to lay the siege
- there's a limit on frequency with which you can conduct these missions so that pushing the meter from the middle to either end takes at least 24h even if the other side doesn't conduct any missions of their own
- all missions should be dangerous, ie run the risk of getting into open combat with the other side

The gist of the idea is to change base destruction from a single event to a series of smaller events spread out over time so both sides have the opportunity to push towards victory, which I think would solve the timezones issue. If both sides conduct missions only when they have the advantage (due to timezones) they'll just cancel each other out and the siege meter won't progress either way. To make real progress on the siege meter you'd also have to complete missions when you're not at peak strength, so you run a real risk of losing your combat characters. Mind you, this whole siege meter talk is meta, there doesn't have to be an actual explicit progress bar because that might feel a bit too game-y.

As for infrastructure, there's certainly room for that at the siege site, but what I really had in mind was advanced town infrastructure required to construct siege weapons. It should take a lot of time and effort to develop, so it's more of a thing you build at your homebase. The purpose of this is twofold: limiting the range in which you can destroy other bases (you have to get the siege equipment from these production facilities to the siege site with only roads to move it fast) and making the attackers expose a high investment base of theirs rather than a hearth vault they can put up in a day or two so they run a risk of a retaliation that really hurts.

Regarding M&B comparison to the second part of my post, that's fairly apt. Dunno about the weapon limitation, but you certainly shouldn't be able to do sneaky stuff like climbing over walls while you're wearing heavy armour.

Also, regarding the whole village vs personal claim thing, I think there shouldn't be any difference between them when it comes to siege. In fact, I think that using town claims to declaim personal claims should be removed, if you want a claim gone you should have to lay siege to it and destroy the claim stake.

i like this, the fact that anybody with enough strength can just walk up to someones palisade and break it down without issue is kind of awful, having a system where they actually have to do something would add a lot to the game IMO

[zacty]

The main problem I see with brick walls and all these defensive measures being required is that the people who aren't on enough, don't understand the game enough, or don't have the manpower to implement them are all essentially fucked. Don't get me wrong, i don't think players should be "rewarded" with mechanical defensive measures for not playing the game correctly, but there needs to be either options for a hermit with a palisade and basic hermit-y stats to defend himself, or it needs to be more difficult and pointless to fuck with him. Currently there is not shortage of people who will destroy these kinds of people just because they can, it's the same attitude you see in Eve online a lot. If you decide to play like this, maybe your character could start to reflect that? i don't think that committing a crime should reduce your HHP, but maybe it could work in tandem with a repurposed personal belief system? commit a bunch of crimes, and it changes certain modifiers based on how bad the crime (theft vs murder, etc.) and how often they commit crimes. I suppose you could get around this by just using a crime alt like people already tend to do, but i have always thought you should only be able to have one character at a time, or alts should at least be less frequent.

[Xcom]

I think that the mechanics work quite well and just need tweaked. It doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheal from scratch and unless you restrict access other then brickwalls you end up with another type of walling mechanic. The issue is just how the current mechanic doesn't allow for easier raiding.

Just an idea among the other ones. Moat can be dug from nearby water (lakes, rivers). You can dig them around your brickwalls. It will prevent rams from being pushed up against the brickwall. Regular rams can be used instantly after built but can't break brickwalls behind moats. stationary catapults can be used to break down brickwalls that are placed behind moats. Would be nice to have the catapult need a longer building preparation. If it was spoted the defenders could be pre warned about the incoming attack and could react while the attackers had to build and prep a catapult under defensive circumstances. This would at the same time eliminate the brick spam abuse.

[borka]

You're talking about moats i guess
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moat

Jackard tells us about KAG often ...

[Gray]

For the record, I very much approve of this discussion. If there is a reasonable alternative to the ugly walled-in compounds of current Haven, I'd very much like to hear it.

For small villages or claims:
Locks on house doors that require a key to open. The doors are upgradeable up to a point it requires a ram to destroy.
Lockpicking skill that requires lockpicks made of steel. If you are lockpicking or bashing a door to a house which you have scents pointing towards, you get bonus speed.

For established villages or factions:
- Fortifications that require a siege engine to be destroyed can only be constructed inside a village claim.
- Said fortifications in a village drain authority. Example: 1 authority per segment, 5 per cornerpost, 50 per tower, 100 per gate.
- Scented hearthfires inside the claim also drain authority. Example: 1 per theft scent, 5 per battery, 200 per murder.
- Once authority reaches a designated low number the fortifications will be easier to destroy and will start to decay.
- Siege engine construction inside the claim will also take 75% less time.

[Linkpwns]

For the record, I very much approve of this discussion. If there is a reasonable alternative to the ugly walled-in compounds of current Haven, I'd very much like to hear it.

For small villages or claims:
Locks on house doors that require a key to open. The doors are upgradeable up to a point it requires a ram to destroy.
Lockpicking skill that requires lockpicks made of steel. If you are lockpicking or bashing a door to a house which you have scents pointing towards, you get bonus speed.

For established villages or factions:
- Fortifications that require a siege engine to be destroyed can only be constructed inside a village claim.
- Said fortifications in a village drain authority. Example: 1 authority per segment, 5 per cornerpost, 50 per tower, 100 per gate.
- Scented hearthfires inside the claim also drain authority. Example: 1 per theft scent, 5 per battery, 200 per murder.
- Once authority reaches a designated low number the fortifications will be easier to destroy and will start to decay.
- Siege engine construction inside the claim will also take 75% less time.

WElllll shiiet if loftar is listening then here is my 2 cents:

-Locks on doors ffs, It just makes sense, and it should be acessable to hermits. I made a wooden lock for my wood shop class so I know its do-able
-But ultimately I feel there are 2 things that make defence, raiding, defending ,etc all a mess in HnH or any pvp game similar to it like rust or what have you. And that is UNREALISM and now, I'm not the kind of player to think that you should slap realism in a game just for the sake of it but with that out of the way here we go.
-->Offline defenders durring a raid

In real life if someone has a fucking battering ram outside your house your going to hear that, your going to wake up and get ready to fight.
In haven and hearth when I have been raided AND LOST when I was online it has never really ended with a bad taste in my mouth, because at least I got to fight back and I knew I tried my best, and hell pvp is kinda fun.
But there's nothing that makes me, or anyone (in HnH or any other pvp game) more butthurt then logging on to see your entire settlement trashed, You feel cheapshotted the bastards didn't even give you a fair chance with their damn time zone differences!

So how do we negate this? Here is what I think:

-Traps, traps that can kill invaders at that! Or just hurt them, an OFFENSIVE capability that deters them (a good defense is a good offense yes?), this is why I liked braziers in Salem, however shooting turrets seem a bit op, maybe a few spike traps or what have you would be more fair?
-Watch dogs? Aggressive ones?
-Walls are stronger if all villagers or associated people (people who have at least like tresspass and theft or vandalism bypass) are offline. This would ALSO kinda maybe deter bots...atleat the 24/7 ones....maybe...doubt it..
-Your character will go ape shit and fight them! This can be toggled on or off, and if the AI and stuff is really well done it would be nice but I can see how it can be a realllly difficult project.

-->Teleportation and Space

Say you want to raid a place 5 hours walk/boat from your village, ya know what you should have to make that a round trip, no hearth tp for you good sir. Again, in SALEM you cannot TP to your homestead OR boston when you have commited a crime and theres cooldowns and stuff, yadda yadda


alright I'm really tired rn and have school in the morning I havent checked for formating, spelling, or anything and I probably sound like a moron...

[txtrung0]

-Walls are stronger if all villagers or associated people (people who have at least like tresspass and theft or vandalism bypass) are offline. This would ALSO kinda maybe deter bots...atleat the 24/7 ones....maybe...doubt it.

Nahhhh then the botters will be like "scripting: log out when players are near, except the ones in your whitelist."
And the hermits be like "log out the momment you see something red and is moving."