Game Development: This Little Light O' Mine

[APXEOLOG]

Currently J&L tries to solve "How to prevent scorched earth after the siege" with "Prevent siege" instead of "Buff anti-pillage mechanic". That's why this looks like shit every time

Not entirely sure what you mean by "buff anti-pillaging mechanic", but perhaps things like buildings having rubble states, from which they can still be repaired, and the like?

I can agree that we need to work more on things like that. The relative ease of destruction of items in simple containers is, for example, a problem for defenders too. Even if I intended to defend my base after a successful breach -- i.e. not emply scorched earth -- attackers can easily cause a lot of damage just by running around bashing cupboards and the like.

Exactly. All containers are bashed, even small houses, all ovens, smelters etc. You will loose not only all loot, but all industry. Cows-slaughter fix was nice, but it's not enough.
SHP-Damage doesn't work (because, and im pretty sure it was reported long time ago, if you lift cupboard full of loot (-1 hp), move away from the claim (-1 hp) you spend 2 health points to move 64 items of loot), also people a regenerating SHP during the raid so it has even less impact.

[Potjeh]

Separate mechanics for wrecking a place and stealing a couple of choice items.

Well, sure, that's cute and all, but that's not what APXEOLOG -- and the rest of the bunch complaining about this problem -- are asking for.

I know, they're asking for razing other people's places to be profitable, which IMO is a ridiculous motion. By the very nature of base construction, only a tiny percentage of the effort invested is recoverable by raiders, even if the owner does absolutely nothing to deny loot. Unless you have plans to let us steal buildings and pavement and earthworks, that is. Now, to make raiding profitable, it needs to take less investment that the recoverable fraction of the effort invested in making the base. So the end result must be that destroying a place is orders of magnitude easier than building it, and that's just unsustainable because griefers will destroy every single base in the game and thus completely destroy the game's population.

Siege should be a costly thing only done when somebody is a thorn in your side that can no longer be tolerated. Leave profit to a completely separate theft system.

[thesourceofsadness]

Braziers firing magical energy isn't invisible magic?

Of course not! It's FIRE MAGIC!

Seriously, i prefer some kind of magic auto-turrets - it's less complicated than current system with shields, global resourses, many different time delays and all other things. Char-vaulting is still an another problem as i see it.

But it's just me. You're the boss.

[APXEOLOG]

I know, they're asking for razing other people's places to be profitable

You didn't get the point. Read once more please. Siege should NOT lead to empty walls instead of village.

[Potjeh]

But then siege becomes pretty much the theft system I'm advocating, and you're left with no real way to remove kebab.

[Enjoyment]

1. One faction successfuly raided another faction.
2. Attackers killed everyone and grab ALL their loot.
3. Defenders quit the game till next world reset (or ever).
Why? Cause they lost everything they have and should litteraly start from the very beginning as hermits. And they can easily be raided again by attackers before achieving even last development state (which was not enough, cause they lost).
4. Attackers switches to another faction. Raid them.
5. Another faction quits the game.
6. Attackers raid all other factions, villages, hermits.
7. All quits.
8. Attackers left alone in the world. They win. They quit.
9. Empty world reset.
Starting again, with hope that atleast all those, who have left the game, will come over again.

And Im sure those who cryin "I want all the loot of raided faction!!!" will quit the game as soon, as all of their own loot will be lost by raid.

[thesourceofsadness]

1. One faction successfuly raided another faction.
2. Attackers killed everyone and grab ALL their loot.
3. Defenders quit the game till next world reset (or ever).
Why? Cause they lost everything they have and should litteraly start from the very beginning as hermits. And they can easily be raided again by attackers before achieving even last development state (which was not enough, cause they lost).
4. Attackers switches to another faction. Raid them.
5. Another faction quits the game.
6. Attackers raid all other factions, villages, hermits.
7. All quits.
8. Attackers left alone in the world. They win. They quit.
9. Empty world reset.
Starting again, with hope that atleast all those, who have left the game, will come over again.

And Im sure those who cryin "I want all the loot of raided faction!!!" will quit the game as soon, as all of their own loot will be lost by raid.

LMFTFY

1. One faction takes a try to raid another faction.
2. Attackers collect a lot of resourses, camp siege machines for hours, wait a lot of timers to do actual damage.
3. Defenders sit behind their walls, see that attackers are stronger, vault all valuables on n00b-chars, destroy the rest, log-off.
4. Attackers say "F@*# dat shit!" and never siege anyone anymore.
...
9. Empty world reset.

[Granger]

SHP-Damage doesn't work (because, and im pretty sure it was reported long time ago, if you lift cupboard full of loot (-1 hp), move away from the claim (-1 hp) you spend 2 health points to move 64 items of loot), also people a regenerating SHP during the raid so it has even less impact.

So SHP damage for every item in an object (so that stealing/destroying a full CB will cause 65 damage) - plus no SHP regeneration while being redhanded?

Would be fine with me, since then at least one would have to bring an army of theft/vandal alts instead of being able to raze a village with a single character...

[Enjoyment]

1. One faction successfuly raided another faction.
2. Attackers killed everyone and grab ALL their loot.
3. Defenders quit the game till next world reset (or ever).
Why? Cause they lost everything they have and should litteraly start from the very beginning as hermits. And they can easily be raided again by attackers before achieving even last development state (which was not enough, cause they lost).
4. Attackers switches to another faction. Raid them.
5. Another faction quits the game.
6. Attackers raid all other factions, villages, hermits.
7. All quits.
8. Attackers left alone in the world. They win. They quit.
9. Empty world reset.
Starting again, with hope that atleast all those, who have left the game, will come over again.

And Im sure those who cryin "I want all the loot of raided faction!!!" will quit the game as soon, as all of their own loot will be lost by raid.

LMFTFY

1. One faction takes a try to raid another faction.
2. Attackers collect a lot of resourses, camp siege machines for hours, wait a lot of timers to do actual damage.
3. Defenders sit behind their walls, see that attackers are stronger, vault all valuables on n00b-chars, destroy the rest, log-off.
4. Attackers say "F@*# dat shit!" and never siege anyone anymore.
...
9. Empty world reset.

..aand all live peacefully in harmony - thousands of new players come into the world, build amazing villages, and even cities... )
And seriously, you described the current siege system, working this way since w9, and Game still holds a pretty stable (and high) amount of active players in this world. And noone have gone till now. So any changes may cause only 2 results: coming of new players, or loss of current ones.

[jorb]

I know, they're asking for razing other people's places to be profitable, which IMO is a ridiculous motion.

Idk. I'm a bit torn.

• On the one hand I appreciate that you can evacuate a city under siege to some extent. You can vault some materials and shit to get you started again, and you can spite the attacker somewhat by denying him resources, which probably feels like at least a partial victory in the context of you losing your base.
• For that same reason I am not entirely opposed to scorched earth tactics being a thing. You do still have to go through the motions of actually scorching the earth, and deciding when to commit to that course of action is at least potentially an interesting decision. Scorched earth is obviously a thing in real life.
• At the same time it kind of also sucks if scorched earth is always the guaranteed outcome. Even if sieges aren't profitable as such, I think getting away with some amount of booty from a raid would be fun and reasonable.

Some people have suggested various form of hoard mechanics -- villagers stash random nonsense to get some defensive buff or something, and those stashes can then somehow be emptied when the village shield, say, has been down for X amount of time -- and I'm not entirely opposed to that line of thinking. Formalizing the "ante" of the siege could be a better approach than trying to come up with roundabout intrusions to normal logout behavior and item handling in vain attempts to prevent self-destruction.