Lack of offline protection will cost the game

[Kaemik]

Completely different? No, they are only slightly different but with a better engine/netcode (I think is the proper term.)

They're pretty significantly different. Whatever the case, we do know keeps are going to work differently and prettymuch everyone has some kind of beef with the old siege system it seems like. Too easy to lose your stuff overnight. Too hard to take if there are defenders with firearrows. Given nobody was happy I think it's pretty worthwhile to discuss what kind of systems we would like to see without the assumption it will be a straight cut and paste.

 

[Sev]

If people aren't blasting you, then you probably aren't winning or doing well. What do you do when someone kills you "Ah that kids shit zerg kid".



The issue, in my opinion, is that it completely changes the dynamic of the game. Now the biggest zerg in the siege window wins, only guilds who are from the siege window time can participate, encourages afking and just logging on for siege window, guilds that would otherwise perish may be incredibly strong upsetting the balance of power.

I'm not saying siege windows are the answer. I don't know what the best solution would be. I just know from experience that offline raiding blows and there must be a better option out there.

 

[Kaemik]

One issue with short siege windows that I saw a lot in Darkfall if the whole siege goes down in an hour or two you guy gets that isn't actively involved in the engagement that come to the sieges just to "scroach" AKA steal gear of the bodies of dead people. I've actually seen entire sieges have their outcomes changed because one of the main forces gets engaged with a massive force of scroachers. Beyond the scroaching issue. If there is a siege that's going to last an hour I might decide to come participate with my entire guild out of sheer boredom even if I have pretty low interest in either side of the fight.

Longer engagements that involve lots of little skirmishes culminating in a final siege means if I want to change the outcome of that fight, I need to devote more than an hour or two to participate in it meaningfully. That's kind of a good thing. Because say I live in GK and our whole guild marches off to take part in some siege in Meduli, and we have enemies to our south with their eye on our keep. The moment they hear we're all in the Meduli siege, they will press in to take our outposts, forcing us to either recall our forces home or risk losing our own keep. The shorter the siege, the easier it is to slip off and accomplish more before our enemies even realize we've abandoned our posts.

 

[Rorry]

They're pretty significantly different. Whatever the case, we do know keeps are going to work differently and prettymuch everyone has some kind of beef with the old siege system it seems like. Too easy to lose your stuff overnight. Too hard to take if there are defenders with firearrows. Given nobody was happy I think it's pretty worthwhile to discuss what kind of systems we would like to see without the assumption it will be a straight cut and paste.

Without knowing what the mechanics of the system are going to be the only thing we have to base this discussion on is what we had in MO1 and speculation. Since the systems, especially crafting, are so similar to MO1 it is safe to assume that the siege system will be more like MO1 than those of other games, as well. I don't think it will be cut and paste, but I think it will be the same at it's core.

 

[Kaemik]

Great, do you have any issues with the arguments I'm actually making or just care to continue about how I shouldn't make any points at all because I don't claim MO1 vet status?

 

[MolagAmur]

They're pretty significantly different. Whatever the case, we do know keeps are going to work differently and prettymuch everyone has some kind of beef with the old siege system it seems like. Too easy to lose your stuff overnight. Too hard to take if there are defenders with firearrows. Given nobody was happy I think it's pretty worthwhile to discuss what kind of systems we would like to see without the assumption it will be a straight cut and paste.

You must be pretty new here. You are speaking logically and its kinda throwing me off.

 

[Vagrant]

Henrik in Discord today ( copy paste ) ;

"Keep not to far after persistent is the plans, and we will start working on the assets for housing
We have base of the systems done

We been looking at tons of data and feedback during mo1 housing tc and keeps
The conclusion points at we have a better exp and better system to have a set numbers of keeps with specific wall rules
While housing is free placed and limited to not walls

We will implement siege mechanics with proper offense and defense machinery and yes it won’t be quick easy and cheap to wage such wars"


.. from this my guess is not a lot will change from the original MO concept in essence.

 

[MolagAmur]

Henrik in Discord today ( copy paste ) ;

"Keep not to far after persistent is the plans, and we will start working on the assets for housing
We have base of the systems done

We been looking at tons of data and feedback during mo1 housing tc and keeps
The conclusion points at we have a better exp and better system to have a set numbers of keeps with specific wall rules
While housing is free placed and limited to not walls

We will implement siege mechanics with proper offense and defense machinery and yes it won’t be quick easy and cheap to wage such wars"


.. from this my guess is not a lot will change from the original MO concept in essence.

Is that him saying houses can't have walls around them?

 

[Vagrant]

Is that him saying houses can't have walls around them?

i think so ? lol

 

[MolagAmur]

i think so ? lol

How it should be.

 

[Rorry]

Great, do you have any issues with the arguments I'm actually making or just care to continue about how I shouldn't make any points at all because I don't claim MO1 vet status?

I was only answering the part of the thread that was a conversation between us. About the rest, speculation is a waste of time and the GM's will not be reading this so making suggestions is also a waste of time.

From Henriks words posted just above, I think that they do not know how they are going to make the siege system yet, so maybe you should make a thread in feedback/suggestions.

A keep you control all the associated outposts for is essentially invincible but the buffs drain slowly over time if they are lost, which means you need to wage a war before you can go for the keep. The shortest time to claim a keep would be if you take all their outposts, they don't respond for a day or two, and then you press the attack once their buffs are sufficiently weakened. If they can't scramble to defend their outposts then they deserve to lose their keep at that point. Otherwise, you'd have a really good back and forth of swapping outposts that draws out the engagement and leads to A LOT more fights. People hiring mercenaries to help etc.

I don't understand why anyone who actually wants PvP wouldn't be 100% onboard with such ideas. Feels like a win for everyone except people who want to take keeps without a fight.

This idea doesn't mean there will be more pvp.
It was already like this with towers in MO1 towards the end. It does nothing to deal with the problem of ninja sieges (which is what this thread is about.) People just destroy the control points while you are offline, then you spend your playing time building them again and they destroy more in the night, rinse and repeat for weeks or months. In MO1 destroying them was easier and faster and cheaper than building them, but I do not think that it would have mattered if it was as hard to destroy as to build because it was still always easier without having to fight players.

SV never managed to balance the siege system after they introduced the TS system. They just swung back and forth from too easy to attack to too easy to defend.

I will not be happy with any system that isn't dependent on players fighting players. No AI, no fire arrows.

 

[Sev]

Its no secret that the Sieging System in MO was one of the worst. I'm not sure why people support the current "hey if you're offline or at work and your stuff gets sieged then IDK sucks for you". Its just such a dumb argument. There are countless ways to make the siege mechanics in this game FAR better. Shit they could even steal the Darkfall way and I'd be happy.

With it being a megaserver and a bunch of different time zones...why do people want to be able to attack things that other people can't defend? Shit you had RPK purposefully sieging on Christmas Day lmao. There is nobody to defend it.

As someone else said...most times the siege was initiated for the purpose of just getting some fights. Ninja sieging is just not fun for anyone and is unrealistic for you people like like your semi-realism. Allowing people to prepare and be online would create for more fun for everyone.


Lastly, this is coming from someone who doesn't care much for assets. We usually preferred to play without them bc they are just a liability for the reasons stated above. I do know that a lot of people/guilds quit the game when putting in months of work and waking up the next morning to it all being gone.

Agreed. I could be wrong, but I think Henrik talked about guards, traps, and pets as deterrents for when you offline, but I sincerely doubt that it would be enough. It's ridiculous to expect players to be on 24/7, especially with having limitations like sleep and a job, since, you know, we don't actually live in this game world. In many other games, I've seen even the most hardcore guilds fall to offline raiding. I've been the one raiding them or been a part of them being raided. So, this argument that you should always have sweaty neckbeards watching is ridiculous.

It's not even a fun mechanic when all things are said and done. Sure it's subjective, but for most people, you are going to get more satisfaction out of overcoming players who are online than if they were asleep. Naturally that dopamine just going to hit harder. And even if you lose as a defender, it's going to be a lot less aggravating, and more fun, because at least you were there to have a chance. Of course not everyone can be online even if it's at ideal times for the defenders, but I thought the point was to have as much fun as possible with this defender/attacker form of pvp. Hell, even if you want more realism then having offline raiding should not make sense to you either.

 

[Teknique]

Its no secret that the Sieging System in MO was one of the worst. I'm not sure why people support the current "hey if you're offline or at work and your stuff gets sieged then IDK sucks for you". Its just such a dumb argument. There are countless ways to make the siege mechanics in this game FAR better. Shit they could even steal the Darkfall way and I'd be happy.

With it being a megaserver and a bunch of different time zones...why do people want to be able to attack things that other people can't defend? Shit you had RPK purposefully sieging on Christmas Day lmao. There is nobody to defend it.

As someone else said...most times the siege was initiated for the purpose of just getting some fights. Ninja sieging is just not fun for anyone and is unrealistic for you people like like your semi-realism. Allowing people to prepare and be online would create for more fun for everyone.


Lastly, this is coming from someone who doesn't care much for assets. We usually preferred to play without them bc they are just a liability for the reasons stated above. I do know that a lot of people/guilds quit the game when putting in months of work and waking up the next morning to it all being gone.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that ninja siegeing is amazing, just that siege windows are probably worse.

@Handsome Young Man's suggestion to increase the time and cost required to both build and destroy makes a lot of sense actually. If after 10 hours for example you haven't pushed away the attackers then I think its safe to say you lost.

This is kinda how worked in MO 1 to tell the truth, null keep took us about 48 hours to siege. Mind you 48 hours of straight siegeing is almost like ninja sieging in a way since its using your numbers to wear them down to where they can't log in anymore.

To some extent its a game, a full loot game at that, and someone has to get looted fully and likely aren't going to be happy when that happens. Especially when the loot is their entire guild.

Maybe lets flip the problem on its head, do you really want to play a game that you can never destroy a more well connected foe, because they have 18 years to prepare their defense every time?

 

[Kaemik]

This idea doesn't mean there will be more pvp.
It was already like this with towers in MO1 towards the end. It does nothing to deal with the problem of ninja sieges (which is what this thread is about.) People just destroy the control points while you are offline, then you spend your playing time building them again and they destroy more in the night, rinse and repeat for weeks or months. In MO1 destroying them was easier and faster and cheaper than building them, but I do not think that it would have mattered if it was as hard to destroy as to build because it was still always easier without having to fight players.

SV never managed to balance the siege system after they introduced the TS system. They just swung back and forth from too easy to attack to too easy to defend.

I will not be happy with any system that isn't dependent on players fighting players. No AI, no fire arrows.

It definitely does deal with the issue of losing your entire keep while you're offline if the buffs go down over time as I suggested as opposed to just "you lose the outpost, you lose the buff". If you want it to be more than just a gold check where the enemy attempts to wear down the defending force by wiping their outposts each night, then you don't make the outposts that expensive to rebuild. You have a set number of outposts that aren't to hard to flip/claim and let the primary factor be who controls them.

You make the group who controls the outpost get a notification when an outpost is being taken that notifies them which specific outpost.

I was only answering the part of the thread that was a conversation between us. About the rest, speculation is a waste of time and the GM's will not be reading this so making suggestions is also a waste of time.

From Henriks words posted just above, I think that they do not know how they are going to make the siege system yet, so maybe you should make a thread in feedback/suggestions.

Perhaps. They have implemented ideas from these forums so I believe some of the devs at least skim these topics. I could make a suggestion post about the specific outpost idea I have in mind though.

 

[Sev]

I don't think anybody is suggesting that ninja siegeing is amazing, just that siege windows are probably worse.

@Handsome Young Man's suggestion to increase the time and cost required to both build and destroy makes a lot of sense actually. If after 10 hours for example you haven't pushed away the attackers then I think its safe to say you lost.

This is kinda how worked in MO 1 to tell the truth, null keep took us about 48 hours to siege. Mind you 48 hours of straight siegeing is almost like ninja sieging in a way since its using your numbers to wear them down to where they can't log in anymore.

To some extent its a game, a full loot game at that, and someone has to get looted fully and likely aren't going to be happy when that happens. Especially when the loot is their entire guild.

Maybe lets flip the problem on its head, do you really want to play a game that you can never destroy a more well connected foe, because they have 18 years to prepare their defense every time?

Making it so hard to siege and costing so much time and resources does indeed suck. They did something like that in LIF MMO, but it doesn't have to be that extreme. Testing and tuning the right balance would probably be needed. It's not like it has to be one extreme or the other.

 

[Kaemik]

Maybe lets flip the problem on its head, do you really want to play a game that you can never destroy a more well connected foe, because they have 18 years to prepare their defense every time?

If the tools exist to do little things to wear them down over time, yes. In that case say someone tries to build an empire that covers the whole map so they can own everything. Eventually everyone who isn't with them will be against them. Twenty little tiny groups just consistently harassing their outposts will start to wear on them over time and have a demoralizing effect. The resistance factions can find fights whenever they want, strike at targets whenever they please, meanwhile a combination of boredom and a war against buzzing flies they can never quite seem to land their swatter on begins to wear on the empire. Cracks start to form as morale decreases. Eventually it starts to crumble into multiple factions and their reign of the Han is replaced by Wei, Wu, Shu and a dozen other little warlords.

In other words. I do want it to be VERY hard to destroy a very active, very organized, economically strong foe. But as long as we have the tools needed to wage an effective guerilla campaign I don't see the game reaching a state where fun cannot be had by those who seek it.

 

[ElPerro]

I know henrik talked about how he didn't want timed windows, and how he thinks guards will be good enough. I'm going to go on record and say the AI is potato quality and in no way will be agile enough to provide sufficient protection against off line raids. Players don't want to go to sleep one night, and wake up the next to nothing. Look how that turned out for games like Atlas/LO. I'm not sure what the solution is outside of siege windows and the like, but the lack of offline protection and the hope that clumsily put together AI is not the solution or the answer to having a long term sustainable population.

If they do a sort of "soft" siege window with guards only on active duty while you sleep, then they could buff guards (mainly vs siege weapons so they dont unbalance pvp) and more hp on buildings, so it would be really hard to borderline impossible to siege on off hours vs a guild with enough resources to maintain the guards. This was pretty much like MO1, instead guards were active 24/7 so it could take a day or two of non stop sieging to take someone down.

As long as you can raid without guards and maybe a way to capture keeps that is only possible outside of that window, I'm ok with sieges being hard and time consuming. They should feel like a big major event, not just dropping a mang because your bored. In MO1 you could take weeks chipping down a keeps guard outposts before striking the final blow. The problem was, at one point, the ONLY way to get pvp was by sieging, and it was 1% pvp and 99% fighting guards. For that to change we also gonna need siege ladders to actually get inside the walls without the need of siege weapons.

 

[MolagAmur]

I don't think anybody is suggesting that ninja siegeing is amazing, just that siege windows are probably worse.

@Handsome Young Man's suggestion to increase the time and cost required to both build and destroy makes a lot of sense actually. If after 10 hours for example you haven't pushed away the attackers then I think its safe to say you lost.

This is kinda how worked in MO 1 to tell the truth, null keep took us about 48 hours to siege. Mind you 48 hours of straight siegeing is almost like ninja sieging in a way since its using your numbers to wear them down to where they can't log in anymore.

To some extent its a game, a full loot game at that, and someone has to get looted fully and likely aren't going to be happy when that happens. Especially when the loot is their entire guild.

Maybe lets flip the problem on its head, do you really want to play a game that you can never destroy a more well connected foe, because they have 18 years to prepare their defense every time?

Fair enough. I guarantee you though I could sit down with a few people and come up with a system that is far better than the current. I don't see how siege windows would be worse if done correctly...but then again we all know a lot of things can sound good on paper, but be horrible in practice. I just refuse to accept that we have to put up with this lazy ass system in MO2. Because at the end of the day...thats all it is. Its laziness and not wanting to find a better solution.

Perhaps SV already has it figured out? We will see...

 

[Rhias]

How did Rust solve the offline raiding issue? They got a pretty healthy population, no?

 

[Bicorps]

. For that to change we also gonna need siege ladders to actually get inside the walls without the need of siege weapons.

There was a way to use Elementalist Magic to get over walls( They removed it after 1 siege). It basically work as ladder... it make you go over the wall and that it but let me tell you why they removed it.

They removed this 'Claiming wall Mechanic" which was probably not even intended, because people get siege by the inside. Another guild will get into your walls and if nobody notice and even if they notice 1 or 2 guys and kill them. If the the guild get like 20 people logg off into your walls all ready to siege... well your fuck mate, you cant even get out to defend, you cant do shit basically. It just give no chance for the defender if the attacker is wise.

People have probably use it more than I think but it get removed shortly after PYRE get siege by RPK by the inside and stole all the relics.