Lack of offline protection will cost the game

[Kaemik]

They seem to have decided that less sandbox can balance TC problems in limiting where keeps can go. I can agree. Sometimes having limitations can help a developer sculpt an experience to play out the way they want it to. As big of a fan I am of Wurm Online, that game did not sculpt a great competitive experience. Games like Darkfall, Crowfall, EVE and MO have always been "softcore sandboxes" IMO. They're balancing the need for complete player freedom with a desire for a balanced and enjoyable competitive experience. It's the very nature of these sorts of games. I would have A LOT of suggestions if we're talking about a true sandbox experience like Wurm or LiF (If you haven't played those I'll summarize and say terraforming is a requirement to be "softcore sandbox" IMO). But we're not, so all I can say is I hope that keeps in MO2 are really detailed in how we can use components to make very customized bases.

Wouldn't mind seeing houses have an area around the house you can customize a bit too, though with different options than we have for keeps.

Timers feel very artificial to me. But things like set outpost locations... I'd make the locations natural terrain features that feel like places of importance to have a presence. Some place you can't even reach without magical means probably isn't too important to have a fortified outpost on. You could achieve the same effect by just having some logical limitations that make the system feel a bit more real, but the simplest method is probably just choosing the locations as they already did with keeps. Theres at least 3 different rules outposts would need to follow if they're freeform placement, while with pre-placement they don't have to screw with any of those kinds of systems.

 

[Dracu]

will be interesting to see what Non-keep owners have as tools to prevent offline ninja sieges... i doubt any besides exploitable unaffordable AI. Way to much focus on Castles in here xD since they wont have walls or anything. Iam talking smaller guilds

 

[MolagAmur]

I'm not saying it should be "hardcore", but it should be sand-boxy. Artificial timers are not the way to go. And the same for static non-player build camps/outposts.
Add something like siege camps or boulder piles which need to be build before the siege starts. And with build I don't mean a architect that stands here for hours. I mean something like transporting parts/boulders with wagons from your keep/house/whatever to your enemy.
Something were people actively need to do something.
The speed of it is defined by the planning & strategy. And there is also no warning in chat saying "a siege camp is build nearby" but player need to observe it themselves. So transporting on "hidden" paths or some other tactics of disguise.
The defender should know it's surrounding, possible paths & watch them carefully.
So basically based on "skill", rather than timer & NPC's.

That would be fine if like someone else said where it takes potentially days to fully siege a fortified keep and not just a few hours. Look man...All I'm wanting is for people who have to work and sleep to be able to log onto the game and at least contribute to the defense of their keep before it all gets knocked down and rebuilt by the attackers. I want there to be constant momentum shifts during a siege and lots of fights. Im sure its a shitty feeling when you are stuck at work and you're just reading updates and knowing when you get home its already gonna be over with.

Houses and shit are whatever. I have an idea on that that is similar to ArcheAge, but I bet a lot of people would bitch about that as well...even though it would make owning territory even more important and interactive and even allow keeps who protect their "citizens" well to raise house taxes in the area and profit.

 

[Kaemik]

will be interesting to see what Non-keep owners have as tools to prevent offline ninja sieges... i doubt any besides exploitable unaffordable AI. Way to much focus on Castles in here xD since they wont have walls or anything. Iam talking smaller guilds

I actually rigged out a way to work houses into my proposed outpost system for keeps. Summary is that you would make houses get buffs for controlling outposts in their area just like a keep, and then allow multiple guilds to share their bonuses of an area if they want to work together on controlling an area

 

[Kaemik]

Look man...All I'm wanting is for people who have to work and sleep to be able to log onto the game and at least contribute to the defense of their keep before it all gets knocked down and rebuilt by the attackers. I want there to be constant momentum shifts during a siege and lots of fights. Im sure its a shitty feeling when you are stuck at work and you're just reading updates and knowing when you get home its already gonna be over with.

That's where I'm at too. There are two huge takeaways I got from playing ArcheAge.

1. Huge gear/level disparities drain the life out of "PvP" MMOs.
2. Making short events super important sucks as the more content you have like that, the more the game controls your life.

People should schedule their gaming around their life not their life around the gaming. Games that lose focus on that are strangling their potential audience.

I realize this game will never be AA level bad but AA got so bad I felt compelled to do 5 hours of scheduled content a night when I made a final go of it in AAU. It was to the point that when I quit they would have had to pay me to stay.

 

[Dracu]

I actually rigged out a way to work houses into my proposed outpost system for keeps. Summary is that you would make houses get buffs for controlling outposts in their area just like a keep, and then allow multiple guilds to share their bonuses of an area if they want to work together on controlling an area

I like this idea, as long as controlled buildings are limited to guild level/size and the controll towers need a minimum distance to one another.

 

[Rhias]

I like this idea, as long as controlled buildings are limited to guild level/size and the controll towers need a minimum distance to one another.

His suggestion is to add static control towers. So non-user placed.

 

[Kaemik]

His suggestion is to add static control towers. So non-user placed.

If it's a huge hang up you could make a minimum distance between them, non-placeable in certain terrain, and then just make all outposts within a certain radius give the bonus. However, I think preserving "sandbox purity" for the sake of "sandbox purity" is a bad idea. It would take less time and lead to more engaging fights if they are just put outpost spots in places that are naturally important terrain features.

Still, if that's the hangout, it can be fixed. With a lot of extra work that I don't think will make the game any more inherently fun.

 

[Dracu]

His suggestion is to add static control towers. So non-user placed.

Static towers for non keeps sound meh but for keeps it kina makes sense to avoid the placement issues from mo1. But i guess we all know SV. We can argue about all kinds of ideas but in the end... it will be how henrik wants it. They probably have a rough idea for it and we have to eat it... if we like it or not xD

 

[MolagAmur]

His suggestion is to add static control towers. So non-user placed.

I suggested this quite awhile ago as well. Static towers would be great imo because it would prevent the bullshit people did in MO1. I dont really see how it matters if SV places them or if we do.

I dont like the idea of any towers or such for houses though. It would be a mess.

 

[Speznat]

longer time required to siege stuff would be great.
easier to build stuff would be great.

and no timers or restrictions in form of outgame mechanics. thats just bad game design in general. bette ringame mechanics that make the sieging process longer.

 

[Kaemik]

I suggested this quite awhile ago as well. Static towers would be great imo because it would prevent the bullshit people did in MO1. I dont really see how it matters if SV places them or if we do.

I dont like the idea of any towers or such for houses though. It would be a mess.

The towers wouldn't be specifically for houses. The map would be divided into regions of say like 20 towers and most of them would have a single keep. Then you would have some mini-regions of like 5 outposts that are tied to hamlets of just blank regions with no large fortifications if you went with the expanded system for houses. Region bonuses would be shared by all players that form an alliance in that region. The primary point of system is to get bonuses for keeps or siege camps. But it could actually apply to any structure in the region.

So if you lived in a 20 outpost + keep regions the alliance bonus would apply to your house. If you went in a 5 outpost region it would just be houses and hamlets. I'd make those slightly lower value regions for groups looking to have something small to call their own.

 

[MolagAmur]

longer time required to siege stuff would be great.
easier to build stuff would be great.

and no timers or restrictions in form of outgame mechanics. thats just bad game design in general. bette ringame mechanics that make the sieging process longer.

Basically this. The more I think about siege timers and things similar to it, the more I dislike it. Being able to siege whenever was fine. Truly the bad thing with sieges in MO1 was just how fast they could be.

So yeah. Making them take quite a while longer would be better and basically remove the need for timers.

Whatever SV decides....I'm here for it. As long as the game has a healthy population ninja sieging won't be much of a thing for keeps anyway

 

[Eldrath]

Basically this. The more I think about siege timers and things similar to it, the more I dislike it. Being able to siege whenever was fine. Truly the bad thing with sieges in MO1 was just how fast they could be.

So yeah. Making them take quite a while longer would be better and basically remove the need for timers.

Whatever SV decides....I'm here for it. As long as the game has a healthy population ninja sieging won't be much of a thing for keeps anyway

Let´s not forget how necessary they became at the end of MO1 lifecycle. If sieging is the way nearly all conflicts are waged rather than physically controlling an area, than the most efficient way will become extremely popular.

I think going with my proposal will avoid gimmicky mechanics that rely on NPCs or special buildings. Simple solutions are easier to balance and less prone to be exploited. Holding territory woudl heavily rely on actually living there, diplomacy and good planning.

 

[Kaemik]

I guess your system is fine if we want attacking to be a major chore and the defender to always win. If you make the siege camp vulnerable the whole time after it's built until the siege is ready then you'll need to stand guard of if the whole time it's up and the defender can make consistent pushes the entire time it is up. If you're hiring mercenaries for the offense its "Hey I need you to stand here and guard this siege camp for X hours", for defense its "Hey, bring all your guys to destroy this siege camp. Going to take like 20 minutes once everyone gets here."

Unless your idea is that it should only take a few hours in which case I'm going to revert to my previous argument that ninja sieges suck and people shouldn't lose something they spent weeks or months developing with zero chance to contribute even a little in the span of going to sleep, going to work, and coming home.

The point of my "gimmicky" system is that it's less tedious and more PvP oriented. You're the attacker, the defender isn't resisting, you sweep their outposts and then you're free to go do other stuff until they actually get people on to do something about it. Like if you control all the outposts and they aren't getting flipped back, you can go hit a dungeon, do some ganking, whatever. Same thing on defense, they sweep your outposts, you sweep them back. If they aren't continuing that's the end of it and you can go do other stuff until fighting heats up again.

You sweep them, they're claiming it back, then it actually gets fun and you divide out groups to contest their groups so you can fight over all the points.

You want to hire mercenaries? They need to consistently claim outposts for either side so same effort and same cost most likely. And yeah, you need to actually live in your area. Imagine trying to defend 20 outposts in a region you don't have a consistent presence.

I want sieges to take effort no matter which side you are on. But it also shouldn't be boring for either side as HYM is so fond of saying "this is a game". Small group PvP over a bunch of little points isn't boring. It can drag out for days, weeks or even months/years as real sieges often did and as long as you have a core on each side that enjoys small group PvP, then people will be engaged and having fun that entire time.

The only "gimmick" you can use to abuse this system is having guys who absolutely love fighting for outposts and make that their mission inside your guild. That gives you a serious leg up. And there is a bit of intended strategy of how you will allocate your forces to maximize their impact. But there are way less working parts than you're pretending.

 

[Eldrath]

Yes, if you are terrible at playing the game taking down someones assets will be very hard with my proposal. That is working as intended in my view. Sieging should be hard, and happen rarely as the last resort when all other means of resolving a conflict have failed. Raiding and small scale fighting should be prevalent.

Allowing the players to influence the outcome in multiple ways (logistics, fighting, smuggling, cloak&dagger etc.) promotes sandbox play rather than forcing gameplay into fighting over POI designed by the developers. What you claim to be tedious is actually what someone else might enjoy doing. The adrenaline pumping fights will happen as well, just out of organic gameplay rather than based on capture points.

As far as timing goes I think there are certain sweet spots to be hit and they can adjusted over time. The time it takes to build a siege camp should rely on the preparations you did, which again offers the opportunity to sabotage those preparations. A cat and mouse game rather than fighting over battlegrounds.

I think your idea is very fitting for the games where it´s heavily used (themeparks with RvRvR PvP) but falls short in providing enganging sandbox gameplay. I´m here for the sandbox.

 

[Vagrant]

Allowing the players to influence the outcome in multiple ways (logistics, fighting, smuggling, cloak&dagger etc.) promotes sandbox play rather than forcing gameplay into fighting over POI designed by the developers. What you claim to be tedious is actually what someone else might enjoy doing. The adrenaline pumping fights will happen as well, just out of organic gameplay rather than based on capture points.

fucking spot on there old chap.

 

[Kaemik]

My idea is largely adapted from Crowfall which is as much sandbox as Mortal was once the guild vs. guild ruleset made it in. There are two huge problems I have with one system. They both can be accounted for, but they're both worth noting.

1. Given how hard it will be to take a keep, it could easily lead to a problem where a major early determining factor of who gets keeps is who places something first. This can be accounted for, you would just need to ensure it's very easy to take down a keep before it's built up. Keeps should be claimed by groups who take, defend, and build up their keep spot to the point taking it down is a major challenge. Not whoever has the fastest fingers in the west.

That is one problem my system accounts for perfectly. Given the bonuses are built over days, you would actually need to control the territory awhile before you can viably lay claim to it. This is because your keep would have no bonuses and could be wiped the second you logged if you didn't start by claiming and holding the territory around it.

2. If it's damn near impossible to take keeps from active groups, people are going to whine to make it easier constantly. As long as SV holds firm on their stance that you really do need to stand there with your thumb up your butt and/or haul rocks for the 24+ hours sieges should take as the attackers I guess that's fine. But we do need to go into it with the understanding people will whine endlessly once it is implemented and if we're going for that system they're going to just have to keep whining.



I think my system would be ultimately a hell better if the objective is to get fights and have them be fun and not some kind of worship of sandbox purism in a game with set keep locations and no terraforming (AKA, already a softcore sandbox). But if people really prefer this I could live with it I guess.

 

[Goltarion]

Given how hard it will be to take a keep, it could easily lead to a problem where a major early determining factor of who gets keeps is who places something first.

And i dont see why it shouldnt be. If your group manages to be the first at a keep spot with the keep deed, the mats to build it and the numbers to defend it while building it, yeah they get that keep. If your group was too slow, but still wants that keep spot, youre gonna have to put in the effort to siege it and put your own keep down (or whatever system will be in place for taking keeps). Mate, youre just making up problems that arent there.

I can only say again, lets just wait for what kind of system Henrik has in mind first,

 

[Kaemik]

As long as the "defend it while building it" is a process, that seems fine. The question is, once you have the mats assembled how long will it take to put something up, what will you need to have up before it's easily defensible, and how disruptable will the process of building it be. If it's fairly quick and easy to put a minimum viable keep down, and it's simply a get the resources and place it type thing, I'd find that system very lacking.

If the answer to those questions are good, then you're right, there is no problem. As I said, this is something that can be accounted for, but it should be accounted for.