Pre-Announcement: Siege Changes

[jordancoles]

There needs to be more to the siege system than just "Did you spot that you were being raided at a reasonable enough time to prevent it?"

It seems a little ridiculous to me that you could be in a village full of people that play 8 hours a day but have school/work in the day so you could miss a raid that happens on you if you're all in similar timezones. Raid mechanics should really always favor the defender, one way or the other. This will just lead to hermits being raided while they're offline with no recourse and even bigger factions being raided in shit times for them to react to. I play late at night constantly, what if i attacked another village that's on a similar timezone to me constantly between 12am and 12pm. If they have school/work in the morning short of calling in sick there's really not much they can do to stop it.

What is ridiculous is you guys brushing off a 12 hour event as some "timezone" thing, it's half a day. If there is a village that has zero activity for 12 hours of the day, it is basically an inactive village. Why should we care if an inactive village can defend itself or not? Especially since the attackers are putting in a huge amount of time and effort to do so, the defender would have absolutely no right to complain in this situation. I agree that raid mechanics should favor the defender but they already do to a very large extent. It's hard to imagine active villages having any issue with this. Also, as loftar pointed out, it's not very likely that lowly hermits are going to be the victims of these raids, given the investment required.

Even if you have 2 people online in that 12h and if they DO notice the siege, there's not much they can do about it if the rest of their village is asleep and then at work right after they wake up

[Thedrah]

12hours to crack the shell of a village, now what about the walls? how many catapult shots to take a palisade down? or a brickwall?

even after that the village could have a minehole underground, why should they not have tiered defense? they could have the best stuff on level 5 and you gotta break atleast 5 extra walls to get to it only to find out the princess is in a different stone tower

the village shield is only the -first- line of defense. only new thing is how much brimstone you got after you take down the shield as to how many walls you take out imo

[georgicus132]

What about not letting the shield be harmed without a member of the defending village (or the pclaim owner) being online?
Maybe add in a way for this to reset after 72(?)hrs of zero activity, so that walls with no one defending them for extended periods of time can still be cracked.
This punishes botters for botting, gives siegers a chance to still manage to pull down the walls quickly, and can afford defenders a bit of notice assuming they aren't cheating
Or even increasing regen to 3k when no one is online and reducing it to normal levels when one or more is present?
This allows siegers to begin the process but until someone comes around they can't complete it quickly (again with the same reset period of sorts)

[MightySheep]

Even if you have 2 people online in that 12h and if they DO notice the siege, there's not much they can do about it if the rest of their village is asleep and then at work right after they wake up

That's why you need allies and your villager's phone numbers. You can also post on forum and invite anyone online to come for free PvP or offer rewards for them to do so. I played Wurm before I came to this game, its similar in many ways and in that game sieges usually last just a few hours. Timezones were obviously an issue as you can imagine, raids were almost always done at like 2am when most people are offline but due to the planning, effort, time and resources it took to do the siege, they were not very common and were often unsuccessful. There were many issues like the defenders would call in back up from nearby towns, people repairing walls from the inside, people logging off with all the valuables on alts, people calling their village mates online via phone and gatehopping with archers. It was almost impossible to bring down an active, strong village.

This whole system has a ton of similarities to Wurm. All those things I listed can be applied to this game. One of the few differences is that a siege in this game takes 5 times longer. Maybe it's because I came from Wurm that the fact that you are calling 12 hours "too short" boggles my mind. I didn't expect you Ainran guys to be the ones arguing so ardently against viable siege mechanics but I guess it makes sense when I think about it since you have always been a sort of dormant village until there is some planned activity. The reason this playstyle has never been an issue for you before was because walls have provided impenetrable safety.

Last world you guys were against a coalition of people that were much larger than you, but in the end you guys came out on top by simply not playing until you had palibasher to brodgar. Lets be honest, that's not something that should be possible. You got away with it because siege mechanics were broken so the enemy couldn't actually harm you, no matter how much stronger they were. I don't think that makes for good gameplay personally, it ties back to that post Ladygoo made about "lack of consequences" in this game. A village should be active if it is to be considered strong, going inactive should be something that is punished. People shouldnt be able to win wars by simply not playing, it's stupid.

Ps. One thing people seem to forget is that raids until now have always had the element of surprise. With sieges there is no surprise, meaning if the defenders are unable to stop the siege, they will likely relocate or log off with all valuables and characters. The destruction of village is the only prize, which comes at high risk and high price.

Wow, what a stupid post.

Why does this forum have so many idiotic moderators? Jorb should really rethink his policy of giving people special privileges based on their post count.

[rye130]

What is ridiculous is you guys brushing off a 12 hour event as some "timezone" thing, it's half a day. If there is a village that has zero activity for 12 hours of the day, it is basically an inactive village. Why should we care if an inactive village can defend itself or not? Especially since the attackers are putting in a huge amount of time and effort to do so, the defender would have absolutely no right to complain in this situation. I agree that raid mechanics should favor the defender but they already do to a very large extent. It's hard to imagine active villages having any issue with this. Also, as loftar pointed out, it's not very likely that lowly hermits are going to be the victims of these raids, given the investment required.

All I'm saying is that siege being such a poor mechanic that it is literally decided almost entirely by spotting it happening is boring and stupid. No amount of number changes will make it interesting when it just comes down to being on at the right time. If that they change the numbers so that you can instantly siege a village with no time gate or make the time gate 3 weeks long, I still feel the same way. Need more to the system than just spotting siege equipment and smashing it.

[MightySheep]

All I'm saying is that siege being such a poor mechanic that it is literally decided almost entirely by spotting it happening is boring and stupid. No amount of number changes will make it interesting when it just comes down to being on at the right time. If that they change the numbers so that you can instantly siege a village with no time gate or make the time gate 3 weeks long, I still feel the same way. Need more to the system than just spotting siege equipment and smashing it.

I don't get your argument at all rye. The old system of hiding a ram and rolling dice on the chance that enemy doesn't notice was stupid for sure. This system is totally different though, sieging is an activity. You have a visible shield and somebody said there will likely be a custom client alert made. In other words it will be impossible or very hard to not notice the fact that you are being sieged, assuming people in your village actually log in. Is it the fact that logging in is required which bothers you? I don't see how or why it should be changed to be more considerate of activity.

[Thedrah]

you can check the shield any time by inspecting the ground of the village. but honestly, only paranoid people and bots will do that

i think we get a bar under authority on the village screen for the shield

[wolf1000wolf]

People are all so divided on the topic of sieges and raiding. Note they're not quite the same despite the words being used interchangeably by some. Even the devs at one point.

On the topic of Jorb's original post. Seems fine.

But a lot of people seem to be saying the whole siege system needs some overhaul. Adjusting the numbers seems pitifully inadequate.

What I'd like to hear are the dev's views on siege and raiding. What are they aiming for?

[Denkar]

Perhaps a declaration of war, then 24hr from that you can start the seige.

I really like this idea. This would give people 24h to realize that they're getting sieged and prepare (so no village destroyed overnight) while still not requiring the raiders to spend 12h taking potshots at the village. It would also encourage actual player vs player fights since both sides would be prepared and ready to fight at the exact same time (right when the 24h period finishes)

Or something like this, same thing

Siege suggestion:
Well, how about introducing barricades that dry 16-24 hours before being usable. While they are drying, they should be indestructible and walk-able through. Once dried, they could be moved (but could be pushed only from 1 side, if that makes sence) or have some kind of gates. That way a village will know that they are going to be sieged. If the attackers won't bother to come by the time the barricades would dry, the village will be able to destroy them.

[Avu]

How about we fucking work on what happens when a raid is successful before making it possible to be successful for a change you know the fucking consequences of damn raids. You all trying to fix an unfixable system that results in total destruction.

Just implement a wall jump system with related counters:
-the more attackers the easier they are to be detected and once detected massive penalties including damage over time,
-no armor while scaling walls,
-use stats for automatic detection, also if a real person sees you he can press a button and do a manual detection
-guard dogs,
-traps,
-locks for valuables,
-can only attack people you have scents of without being detected, still allows assassination if the desire is big enough but it would be damn risky
-cooldown on attempts as well as an expensive skill,
-make it so people who are under wall jump temporary status can't check the quality of ANY items or buildings so they have to steal random crap,
-if raiders get detected they leave scents so you can go wall jump them right back, no detection no scents (only applies to theft; vandalism and assault will always auto detect)
-trying to destroy anything is instant detection (again worth it if it's the top q tree (which you found out through regular detective/spy work) or their best kiln/smelter)
-once you do get detected it's beeline towards nearest wall out of the damn thing or you will die, after all villages should have more people than the limited number a raider party would be able to pull off rather than the gamey and retarded inverse situation metagaming gets us with attackers always outnumbering defenders if they get to choose the time of attack

This would give a loooot more interaction and back and forth than the current system, criminals would be vulnerable and less permanent crime would be more encouraged. It would open up new skills like lockpicking and trap placement/disarming; stealth would be much more valuable. Petty crime will once again have a chance.

And after that if you reaaaaaaly want a siege system you can have one. The raider fags won't be able to complain that siege too hard they can't be criminals game too carebear. It should be stupidly expensive for the attackers because it would be damn permanent.

Remember you want more than the raider faggot factions to play the game or do you?