PvP, Player Attrition, and the Future of Haven & Hearth

[SnuggleSnail]

If Jorbtar wants siege to be workable (they don't) I will write the essay, and give examples with diagrams, but in the meanwhile I actually kindof like sieging people - which is only possible by exploiting people not knowing wtf they're doing because of how defender sided siege chess is.

As per usual there is some retard with no first hand experience spouting confidently incorrect information :roll:

[animary]

"... I actually kindof like sieging people..."

Granted. But also means your enjoyment of the game is predicated on ruining other players' enjoyment. I've no solution, but the issue speaks for itself.

[SnuggleSnail]

Eh, I can see how you'd feel that way if you don't think about it much, but that's a very self absorbed stance, IMO.

For me the game is way less fun at times when nobody is trying to fuck my shit up. I suspect most people who try the "PERMA DEATH OPEN PVP FULL LOOT MMO WITH SIEGE WE SPECIALIZE IN FORUM DRAMA BTW" game want to dunk on others, and all are implicitly agreeing they might get dunked on in the process.

It's unfortunate that most of the PVP orientated people tend to leave faster than the carebears because of how hard it is to participate. ATM siege requires you control an area for probably 5+ days straight without losing a fight, or even taking more than 5min to win a fight during the entire time before you even consider siege chess being unwinnable. Siege probably shouldn't be the be all end all of haven PVP, but I think the fact that it requires a level of commitment that would be illegal for an employer to ask you to do it in most western countries is pretty emblematic of why most PVPbois don't stick around

[Kaios]

I don't rly want to get into the minutia and write an entire essay/siege guide just to prove a point that isn't important. I realize this is a very up my own ass thing to say, but I feel like I'm an authority on siege, and unless you're very experienced you can kindof just take my opinion at face value.

Don't want to write an essay, proceeds to do that anyways over several posts. Everything you say is a very up your own ass thing to say.

[OIchi]

Tell me about archery towers. Would it be possible to simply build more towers, with additional layers of palisade? They can buffer, you can buffer. I imagine size and build contraints might limit archery towers.
Wouldn't a slow moving ram be vulnerable to catapaults? 2 or 3 shots to destroy a ram, no cooldown before repair. Build a new one if you can't wait.

You can only build an Archery tower every x tiles and destroyed ones leave rubble that still blocks the position. So there is a limit on how many you can place.
Archery Tower range is smaller than that of catapult, so they can be easily destroyed by them. Last time I engaged in siege iirc you needed 2h of charge to be able to shoot at archery towers which might have changed.
Archery towers only start shooting 1h after being built, and require 40mins or something like that of shooting to destroy a ram. You can keep repairing the ram in the process waiting for catas to dry.

Long story short, determined attacker is guaranteed to win a siege if defender cannot win a fight at any point during a siege.
However, sieging an actively defended village requires a ridiculous amount of time and effort.
Losing one fight or leaving siege machines unattended for 30mins or so is usually enough to reset siege progress completely.

How do you think it would effect sieging if material quality was a significant factor?

It would make the gap between small and large villages wider. Easier to siege weaker villages.

What sort of mistakes can a defender make? Misstimed/targetted shots, poor space allocation?

All depends on situation, but most common mistake is not building archery towers and defender catapults in the first place.
The thing that would stop most of the sieges right now is to make it not worth it for the attacker. (I'm talking time-wise not about items, you most likely don't have anything valuable to attacker anyways.)
Build defences, probe the attacker looking for when they might be afk and be there when machines are being pushed forward so you can return fire with your own catas.
If you can overpower at any point or at least distract the opponent for long enough to destroy the machines its unlikely for them to try again.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

Snail and I clearly disagree about the state of sieges. He says defenders never lose absent some serious mistake, I say otherwise. He's obviously self interested in that outcome being believed, because it lets him get up to what he does.

But let's take a step back here. Nobody in this thread, devs included, know if Snail or I am right. That should not be dispositive. Even if he is right, the system is so arcane that the devs (and the majority of players), don't understand it. The results speak for themselves.

I *am* right. But changes should still be made even if I'm wrong, compelled by the factual reality on the ground regardless. It's sapping the game of casuals, hermits, and community projects. One need only look at the forum to confirm this. But God is busy in his heaven, and all is no longer right with the world.

I'm not suggesting siege and the threat of siege be removed entirely btw. But it should be simplified and made defender friendly so that the fantasy Snail is trying to push is actually true. It should be simple enough that even Jorb could pull off a successful siege defense.

[SnuggleSnail]

I agree and always have, but it's still very crunge that you always try to present yourself as knowledgeable on every subject when you're not. You've literally not been involved in a single siege with the current system. Most of the falsifiable things you've said about the subject have been wrong.

Discussing specific systems when the developers actively don't want it is a waste, but if you're gonna hard criteria for good siege is:
* Immediately understandable by somebody who's never sieged before
* Explainable in a few sentences
* Not entirely combat focused
* As a stretch goal it'd be cool if larger bases with 200 walls were not x200 the effort to sidge

it's kinda insane to me that everybody always seems to want rly convoluted bullshit when simpler stuff would always work better

fun lore: the last person to REALLY shit their pants about siege being too easy and it scaring away all the hoes was Shubla. He tried to siege Jorb. Jorb decisively won. Jorb said it was fun. Jorb then gutted siege and made it way more defender favored the next patch.

[MightySheep]

What is it about haven in particular that makes everyone willingly play 'open world pvp' game and then act totally bewildered and outraged when they discover there is in fact pvp in it. It never ceases to amaze me.

The 'super advanced groups' is literally just snail, no one else even bothers with shit like that at this point (maybe some small groups like ainran i guess) so the "no way to defend It was over before it started" line is just standard haven hermit defeatism. Why is it so hard to just be honest and say youre not willing to do the bare minimum effort to engage with the pvp system in this pvp game? Its fine to admit that. The "weve tried nothing and were all out of ideas" line is kind of a recurring haven meme.

Just say "im here for pve and i wish this was a pve game" like all the other threads. Youre definitely in the majority with that viewpoint, I just dunno why you guys always have to cope so hard

[OIchi]

what is it about haven in particular that makes everyone willingly play 'open world pvp' game and then act totally bewildered and outraged when they discover there is in fact pvp in it

it never ceases to amaze me

the 'super advanced groups' is literally just snail, no one else even bothers with shit like that at this point

For a longest time, Haven wasn't really advertised to be a PvP game at all, it changed a little with steam release, but it's still fairly easy to miss.
Once you actually start playing, there is almost no indication of how PvP works in the game, your not even prompted to claim and secure your base in tutorials.
If you are lucky you'll get by without encountering any kind of PvP for months and have extremally good time playing the game.
When it actually hits you are unprepared for it, losing character hurts and ways to recover your stats are poorly explained as most of the things in the game are.
If you actually decide to try and engage in PvP you quickly realise how bad and unfun combat system in haven is.
If you dig deeper, you realize that the stat gap is not so easy to overcome, and that you need a specialized client to be on equal footing, even without considering experience gap.

So basically people are having fun in the game, until someone comes and spoil it for them which naturally makes them outraged.

[MightySheep]

who is playing on default client? isnt everyone on the "specialized client" now? lol the good clients aint private anymore that excuse doesnt rly exist

if you really get months into this game without figuring out its a pvp game or to get a proper client then you really dont deserve any sympathy

again, why cant you just say "yes I know this is a pvp game but I wish it wasnt, I just want to play pve" without all this extra copium bs, I would have no arguments with that opinion.

You dont need to attach all the dumb usual excuses about siege is impossible to defend, pvp is impossible to get into, everyone has 3k stats, bots, clients, zergs, blablabla its boring. The reality is if u had any interest in pvp at all youd learn pvp has a very low skill ceiling and there arent really any tryhard groups playing and nobody has any hidden advantage over u