Pre-Announcement: Siege Changes

[NaoWhut]

I like it, lets see how it works out!

[strpk0]

I think there's something else missing from this whole siege system. I'll try to list my ideas in a short manner:

To base it all from: I think every new claim should be (initially) very vulnerable to the catapult system (maybe only taking a couple of hours to break into).

Shield HP and regeneration should be something a village can work towards upgrading (perhaps sort of like an extra character everyone involved gets to raise). Maybe not even in direct/grindy ways, but in a system that gradually makes the shield stronger the more time people spend inside doing things like crafting, earning lp from studying, gaining feps, etc. The idea here is that the village's strength will grow along with the growing strength of its members.
Maybe there should be some sort of cap involved and diminishing returns, similar to characters, this to prevent a village from becoming virtually unraidable too easily.

Now, this could also apply to the sieging part of the system, where the strength of a certain siege could be determined by certain factors (such as the overall strength/stats of the characters taking part in the siege).

Basically the global idea is that how much effort and time sieging a village takes shouldn't be a direct static number, but rather a factor that is affected by the overall strength of the groups involved. And of course, a well established village that has lasted in it's place for a long time and has seen its members grow in strength should naturally be very difficult to raid, whereas some crappy barely-used alt village should be a joke to take care of.

I just woke up and saw this post, excuse me if what I'm saying here makes no god damn sense or is irrelevant.

[DanteThanatos]

I find it hilarious that a good part of the forum goes in a circle like:

Wait time too long> "No one will wait that long!"
Wait time too short> "I don't want to log in to a raided village!"
Low cost resources> "Now every hermitage is doomed!"
High cost resources> "It's not worth doing it!"
Give a warning first> "They will move every loot elsewhere!"
Don't give a warning> "You didn't change anything Jorbtar!"

What I can see is: There is no way to have a game where the players have to control this kind of event and it please everyone. It's just impossible as everyone plays differently.
There will be no way to give hermits/newbies safety and at the same time give larger factions ways to kill criminals or raiders to be satisfied with loot for their efforts.

The game is made in a way that you can choose how to play, and as such there are features in place for those styles of playing. Some play as a farming simulator and have no interest in fight. Others play in a highly competitive PVP where if you drag a little behind you might as well leave to return after a new world.

As Haven itself as a game doesn't go either full PVP nor full PVE the issue of what I said above comes forth.
In any way I'm saying that it should change to one of the extremes, the reason beign that I love the game for what it is.

And in a TL;DR There isn't any way to find balance in siege mechanics as the game stands now.

[jorb]

GG you can bruteforce someone out by just making multiple catapults as they're destroyed

Fun

Ok, so, arguably coles has a point here.

Under the present regime the defenders can attack and destroy a catapult during its initial buildup time, before it has dealt any damage to its target, and thus nullify the attacker's resources spent on that catapult. This creates some "game" around the situation, where both sides have to engage in somewhat unpredictable behaviors -- defend and attack the catapults -- to advance or prevent the siege.

If we remove the initial drying time entirely, the siege could become solely a question about resources, meaning that the attacker can simply "buy out" the defender by spending enough resources on new catapults, fire them instantly, and then not care too much if they live for another cycle or not.

Thoughts? Is there a reasonable compromise between our suggestion and the present regime? Could we make catapults have a two hour initial drying time? Three?

[wolf1000wolf]

I find the whole siege system kinda going in the wrong direction personally.

Atking a village can be divided into a few types:
1) A raid to enrich the attackers
2) A raid/attack to punish/set back the defenders
3) A siege to take over the village

#1 doesn't happen much to larger groups due to the ease of moving away loot
#2 is difficult with current siege mechanics.
#3 just doesn't happen

Consider making a system that allows for actual RAIDS where loot is involved but the defenders have a chance of responding. Like my idea of declaring an attack through ante-ing an amount of curios. Defenders then choose to pay that amount of curios x a factor or engage in a fight. Losing the fight results in shield claim going down by a proportional amount.

If you must have siege engines, consider them be the base cost of being able to declare an atk on a village. Or have them deal much more dmg once the claim shield falls.

[MightySheep]

I personally really like the idea of an enemy faction building catapults and 'sieging' a place over the course of a day or two, to whittle down it's defenses. The defending party should know the approximate time that their shield will go down, and they could then plan to have an actual fight or not.

That is pretty much what is being implemented here. Everyone is focusing on the theoretical 12 hour minimum time but I imagine raids will be more like timezone wars where factions will try to attack each other during their off-hours a little bit each day. Defenders should be able to calculate when their shield is going down if they can math properly (I'm assuming shield soak is visible on idol).

Basically the global idea is that how much effort and time sieging a village takes shouldn't be a direct static number, but rather a factor that is affected by the overall strength of the groups involved.

I disagree. The stength of a village should be in their players fighting power. I don't think a village should be able to boost their shield total to stupidly high amounts because it's a fine line between where raiding is viable or not viable, aka the length we can reasonably expect players to go to in order to raid somebody. I think the current setting is decent enough.
________________

What stands out about this system to me is the importance of alliances. Considering the amount of time it takes to pull off a raid, your enemies basically have all the time in the world to gather their maximum possible fighting force. It is like the invisible shield around your village that prevents raids before they even happen As an example brodgar is a weak village but raiding them means you need a greater force than odditown, great houses and all their allies combined. Villages that dont have friends will be easy targets but as I previously said, a forum thread would almost definitely attract wizards and other pvp hungry groups to the area.

[strpk0]

I will say though, that there is a global problem in deciding the future of siege systems, and it's that I'm pretty sure not many people have actually tried sieging yet (myself included).
I know you guys hate the idea of a sepparate server for testing purposes, but stuff like this sort of highlights the need for one. If people could easily get a feel for the whole sieging thing (and thus have a better idea of what's good for the game and what isn't) then these updates could progress by a lot quicker.

Because right now any informed opinion can only be given by the few players that actively raid (if that's even a thing). It's just not worth it to try to siege someone and put yourself at risk for the sake of testing game features and giving good feedback based upon your experience.
You can look at this problem in many different ways (as evidenced by this thread), but what really matters is knowing by experience if it works or not. And I don't suppose many people will put great amounts of effort for the sake of testing game features, again.

[LadyGoo]

There will be no way to give hermits/newbies safety and at the same time give larger factions ways to kill criminals or raiders to be satisfied with loot for their efforts.

Wrong. Why would I spend my precious brimstones on some filthy nab who has not done anything to me? I would rather use them to take over some resource nodes.

Others play in a highly competitive PVP where if you drag a little behind you might as well leave to return after a new world.

A little note, my faction came back in the middle of W5 and fought against Pandemonium, who had better stats than us. So yeah, there is no such thing as "drag a little behind", especially with the current system, where you can make a stat-caped character within a day, if you work hard enough.

And in a TL;DR There isn't any way to find balance in siege mechanics as the game stands now.

Making the sieges resource-depended
helps the balance. If you wanna play peacefully and etc. don't make people angry. Don't go to the mountains, forage on quality swamps, try to claim quality nodes and stay behind of your walls. No-one will be bothered to do anything to you.

[VDZ]

Catapults are meant to whittle at a base's defenses slowly over time (the shield), we should be able to damage a base's health over time until a certain damage cap- where then the defensive side will have to act (maybe such as a power that costs a lot of influence/lp/some rare materials? that nullifies all damage for a period of time, which any outsider can see how long until they can hurt it again) to either run and escape, or prepare a fighting force back against the raiders. After that damage cap, the raiders should be able to completely break down the walls and get in.

How about this much simpler idea: What if shield regeneration wasn't free? What if, in addition to waiting some time, you would also need to invest resources (and specifically take the simple action of clicking the button to invest those resources, to link/limit regeneration to player activity)? Naturally, it shouldn't be TOO expensive (otherwise hermits would easily be overrun), but expensive enough that damaging the shield in itself is already a useful way of harming an enemy. Alternatively, slight auto-regeneration could be allowed, but proper regeneration could require investing resources.

Also, regeneration should arguably not happen if a certain amount of damage is taken per regen cycle- but regen much faster otherwise?

This is also an option, but I'd like it better in a less strict form - what if the regeneration rate is tied to the time since the claim was last damaged, with minimal regeneration shortly after a hit, but back to full regeneration again if there's been no damage in, say, 36 hours, with regeneration speed gradually increasing over those 36 hours?

Thoughts? Is there a reasonable compromise between our suggestion and the present regime? Could we make catapults have a two hour initial drying time? Three?

Raids against major factions would be near-impossible, or at least definitely not worth the effort. You have to build a lot of catapults to deal decent damage to the shield, but leaving them out in the open for 2-3 hours means there's a HUGE risk of them being destroyed. And they're pretty expensive to build.

[jorb]

Raids against major factions would be near-impossible, or at least definitely not worth the effort. You have to build a lot of catapults to deal decent damage to the shield, but leaving them out in the open for 2-3 hours means there's a HUGE risk of them being destroyed. And they're pretty expensive to build.

One hour? Would also be congruent with their normal drying time after repairs.