Pre-Announcement: Siege Changes

[Enjoyment]

Yeah, I like the idea, too. The question is, though... if the defenders do that as a matter of principle in case there is this theoretical 12 hour raid, it's going to create their own headaches for accessing anything or they're going to have to leave holes for their own access to everything, which means raiders can get to it, too, with minimal effort.

@jorb: you want clash of armies, get the kingdoms stuff up and running you posted about a few months ago. I know a lot of people hate the idea of owing fealty to a lord, but I'm sure most small villages and solo players would do so if they could live a bit more peacefully and independently. They might even embrace it if they know they can just more or less trust their neighbors not to gank them on sight.

Yeap, that's it.
Why I said Jord forces hermits to go off the game? Cause of siege target line: If one of BSF (big scary faction) could raid another BSF with theoretical 12 hours, than what amount of time they need to raid SSF (small scared faction)? If it's the same 12 hours, than what is the pupose to bacome BSF? And if it scales and takes like 6 hours, than what time they take to raid SPH (some poor hermit)? 30 mins? An hour? If the BSF can easily destroy all the hermits in their area they WILL DO IT, eventually. And since the world is so small, and hermits just can't go away, they have ONE WAY - become a BSF themselves. And that's what I'm calling "forcing players".

[VDZ]

12 hours straight of non-stop building and repairing just to break into your village

Bots will definitely be made for this. Only the brimstone cost is really relevant here.

And also, have you given anyone any reason to spend hundreds of brimstone and 12 hours straight of non-stop building and repairing just to break into your village while you're at work? Because if so, I think the siege changes are the least of your concerns.

I consider this a valid concern for traders. I don't think I've really pissed off anyone this world, but my home contains a good amount of loot, which is a sufficient reason to raid if it doesn't take too much effort or too many resources.

I know a lot of people hate the idea of owing fealty to a lord

Personally, I'd love to have the protection of a larger faction at some cost.

[Jalpha]

Yeah, I like the idea, too. The question is, though... if the defenders do that as a matter of principle in case there is this theoretical 12 hour raid, it's going to create their own headaches for accessing anything or they're going to have to leave holes for their own access to everything, which means raiders can get to it, too, with minimal effort.

@jorb: you want clash of armies, get the kingdoms stuff up and running you posted about a few months ago. I know a lot of people hate the idea of owing fealty to a lord, but I'm sure most small villages and solo players would do so if they could live a bit more peacefully and independently. They might even embrace it if they know they can just more or less trust their neighbors not to gank them on sight.

Yeap, that's it.
Why I said Jord forces hermits to go off the game? Cause of siege target line: If one of BSF (big scary faction) could raid another BSF with theoretical 12 hours, than what amount of time they need to raid SSF (small scared faction)? If it's the same 12 hours, than what is the pupose to bacome BSF? And if it scales and takes like 6 hours, than what time they take to raid SPH (some poor hermit)? 30 mins? An hour? If the BSF can easily destroy all the hermits in their area they WILL DO IT, eventually. And since the world is so small, and hermits just can't go away, they have ONE WAY - become a BSF themselves. And that's what I'm calling "forcing players".

It's not that linear.

Make some friends, you don't have to join a faction. Every faction has an enemy faction, some of them have multiple factions as enemies. Plead your case in the moot and if you're entertaining enough and not a dick you would probably find some support. If you make it worth their while. Nothings free.

[Kaios]

They might even embrace it if they know they can just more or less trust their neighbors not to gank them on sight.

This. LadyGoo made a nice post awhile ago detailing the reasons behind why many players don't seem to leave their walls so my question is does such a siege system as has been detailed here improve that situation? Will more players be willing to leave their walls, or less or would that number change at all? I don't think it does change or possibly makes that situation worse and while I think siege is a crucial mechanic involved in the overall conflict process I think that unless the status quo changes any changes you make to siege or combat or what have you won't really change anything.

[jorb]

I'd like to reiterate that there are hard, global limits to how many targets you can siege. I think one merit this system could possibly have is to reduce the tragedy of the commons problem under which all hermits get raided, and instead introduce something akin to a gradual cull of some of them. Ideally: Some get raided, enough to meaningfully support carnivores in the ecosystem, but not so many that herbivores go extinct. Carnivores have to temper their appetites and prioritize the juicier morsels.

I realize that a carnivore free world can perhaps seem ideal to a herbivore, but I actually think that LadyGoo made a good point with the Mousetopia video too. Part of the fun of playing cowboys and indians is that you can loose, and whatever. A care free world is in some sense a nightmare, as it drastically reduces the incentives to do anything at all.

Which, I believe, is also what we have seen in previous worlds, isn't it? The lack of action and drama makes the world go stale.

Sure, losing your base to a raid sucks, but doesn't grinding away for weeks, to then run out of things to do, also suck?

[ven]

Fundamentally: I want war and armies to be features of the game.

If you want war, and not just combat, you need to add all the features that makes wars into wars.

That means the economic cost of sustained aggression, since wars are expensive. Wars shouldn't be easy, or trivial.

In-game system for treaties and bonds, which can be broken at will, but which should exist in-game and not just on forum PMs.

A vassalage system, since complete destruction of your enemies is a counterproductive move: people who aren't killled can pay taxes, tributes, fight for you, and with their industry intact they produce better goods.

In-game reputation system for large villages/kingdoms to support talks of diplomacy, trade, and deal-making between them and other players. That includes keeping a history of wars declared, wars lost, treaties broken, number of vassals etc. If you want to treat this as a war you have to include the political aspect of it as well. You can't leave that to the forum because you know that doesn't work.

Option of choosing between a limited list of village/kingdom laws that grant certain bonuses and penalties to all members, acting to differentiate between groups and make lone players gravitate toward one or another, according to what they want with the game. Some large groups focus on trading, others on production, others on large scale pvp, and others on small opportunity raids, and large groups should be able to have a distinct personalities and translate that into bonuses and penalties.

Or you can say you just want a free for all noobslaughter gankfest and convince yourselves that's "war".

[Kaios]

Which, I believe, is also what we have seen in previous worlds, isn't it? The lack of action and drama makes the world go stale.

Sure, losing your base to a raid sucks, but doesn't grinding away for weeks, to then run out of things to do, also suck?

Sure but in the current state the action and drama belong to a select few groups only, the rest are just fodder for the fire. Hermits have no reason (or ability, really) to get involved with any such politics unless they are the victim.

I said it once before but there aren't any "good" raiders left out there, all we have now are the people looking to raid for loot rather than justice and I don't think that's a good place to be in.

[Ysh]

I also think that there is some argument to be made that an environment where sieges are actually possible may cause the population to coalesce into factions and groupings that are actually viable in that kind of a climate. I imagine that some level of adaptation to a more aggressive ruleset is both possible and reasonable.

Certain to be the statement of most trouble to me. I like to play games in a small group. This is one reason I do not play a game like EVE Online, where biggest zerg factions are best factions. Haven has some defenses from this, given permissions system for the faction is very weak so trust is important. But if trust is assured, more players is more power with no (or small) diminishing returns.

I think easy siege must be accompanied by some other mechanisms. Like some kingdom/vassal systems or some other. I assume intentions is for the worlds to eventually not longer be reset. What of late joiner new player without these systems? ''Oh, you can not just log into game to play it, you need to be applying to one of the 1-3 major game faction on forums first or do not bother doing some play, it will just be ended.'' This maybe sounds reasonable to the establishment player, but I think this is bizarre from other games and asks a lot from the casual.

I also want to be an echo for the sentiment that maybe current siege system cannot be working under every system. Right now it tries to accomplish many things:

• Law enforcement (read: crime retribution)
• Theft of value items
• Deathmatch pvp
• Slow progression/economy damage
• Shitting on shitters so they know they're shit

List maybe not exhaustive. But anyway, can one system fill these needs? As siege gets harder, crime retribution goal gets harder to meet. As siege gets easier, suddenly everyone but the biggest factions can be called a shitter and killed for this reason. I do not think conflation of these goals is good. As from the W9 Siege thread:

I don't think the problem is as much the difficulty of razing a base as it is the difficulty of killing criminals. Wall climbing when? With a debuff ofc that prevents vandalism and cripples your combat skills.

This is something which becomes conflated quickly with discussions on siege. The hearthlands must operating with draconian justice. The only ways of dispensing just desserts is to wipe out entirety of civilisation criminal is from. There must be alternate path of retribution and sabotage than binary siege system. In this case difficult siege is much less of a problem burden.

You see right now that getting raided is a ''game losing scenario.'' As in, like the single player game. You start over, period. I think that you doing some things like making it hard for breaking industry buildings and slaughtering animal is good, but it seems as a band aid fix. The game systems must operate on some principle of least privilege, as in computers. If I can totally shit on someone for crossing me, why should I only slap them in the wrist if it takes the same effort? If someone actually deserves to get completely shit on, why should there be some contrived limitation to it?

To close, I think people are getting caught up in details of implementation without agreeing on or making solid clear the problems to begin with. The core flaw is that a single siege system cannot meet all of the goal it tries for. Not without changing the core game mechanisms, anyway. I think you, Jorb/Loftar must have some vision of where the game will be. What exactly is that vision? It seems like to me that you intend for the game to play at the end much different than it plays now. Without knowing this end, we cannot suggest the systems to get to this end and talking implementation is wasted efforts.

[ven]

A care free world is in some sense a nightmare, as it drastically reduces the incentives to do anything at all.

I might have missed some posts, but I don't think anyone in this thread is defending a raiderless world. Even Avu's suggestion isn't against it.

[jorb]

Sure but in the current state the action and drama belong to a select few groups only, the rest are just fodder for the fire. Hermits have no reason (or ability, really) to get involved with any such politics unless they are the victim.

Politics is by definition a social event, and hermits are by some definition anti-social in their outlook. If you are a hermit you do not engage in politics, and if you engage in politics you are not a hermit. I'm not sure what you imagine the alternative to be.

I also do not think it is that linear or simple. I suspect that there are degrees of involvement.