Siege Mechanics - Outposts

[Kaemik]

I've floated this idea in the past but this is a more refined version of the same suggestion updated to complement changes in game mechanics since the original system. At it's heart there are three things I believe this system can accomplish for MO2:

1. This is a carrot system, designed to encourage healthy PvP among people who desire fights.
2. This is an anti-afk siege system, designed to make it dramatically harder for an active group to lose their territory they've put a lot of work into over a prolonged period of time just because the enemy moved against it while they were all in bed.
3. This is an anti-zerg / pro-local politics system. This system makes sieges less about who can summon the most players for a fairly short event and more about who can maintain the most constant presence in the area being contested. 150 players willing to march across the make for a day are less useful than a dozen or so players who actively live in an area constantly.

The Simple Version

Each keep is given a small number of buildings mechanically tied to it called "outposts". Outposts are in set locations spread all around a region associated with the keep. Think of it in terms of real-world conquest. When you take control of a region the important things aren't going be be towers you place on cliff faces. It's going to be the existing settlements and industrial centers the population established before your conquest. The things that generate the wealth and power of the region. These are what outposts represent.

Each keep region now has a number associate with it called "influence". Influence is a number associated with guilds or alliances in the area. It scales from 0 to 100% or 0 to 1,000,000 influence points. Controlling outposts generates influence for your guild/alliance. Doing tasks from task vendors at an outpost can generate additional influence. This includes new task types as well such as hunting or gathering tasks. Players not associated with a guild or alliance can align their outposts with one vying for control of the region without declaring an official alliance. So smaller groups can take sides in choosing to support the controlling regime, or choosing to support a contesting faction. Or just stay neutral and generate influence for their own group. Their outpost's allegiance will be public information though.

When influence is gained it's subtracted from all existing influence sources. For instance. 30% of the influence in Example Region is controlled by Alliance A. 20% by Guild B. 10% by Guild C. 40% Unclaimed. Group B takes an action that increases their influence by 10k. 3000 points of that are neutralized by their existing 30% influence. 2000 are taken from Guild B. 1000 from Guild C. 4000 from the unclaimed influence pool. "So if they have 99% control then only 1% of new influence will go toward increasing their control of the region?" Yes. This is by design. 100% influence of a region is not meant to be the norm or even realistic. Additionally each day 5% of influence is fed back into the unclaimed state.

So what does influence do? It grants defensive benefits to the structures of all buildings belonging to that guild/alliance inside the region, as well as groups that have declared support for that guild/alliance (That guild/alliance can reject their support if they don't want this). These are things like increased HP, increased damage resist, even potentially the ability to convert stored resources into slow automatic repairs. Additionally they grant offensive benefits against structures to members of the guild/alliance only. These are things like increased hammer and catapult damage and the ability to build certain things such as battering rams, siege towers, and siege ladders at a siege camp near the keep.

Summary of Reasons For This:

1. Outposts present targets worth contesting. They are a constant thing to be PvPed over. Due to the many outposts associated with every keep it also divides up big zergs with a lot of territory forcing them to work as multiple teams if they are being simultaneously contested on multiple fronts.
2. Influence is meant to be generated/lost over time. Sieging a group with high influence in their territory while you have 0% influence would be damn near impossible. A "quick" campaign under this system should take about a week to build from 0% to a suitable amount of influence needed to take a keep from an active guild who had good control of their region. Offline sieges are a top complaint of most players who've dealt with siege systems, and an anti-PvP mechanic. Preventing them is good.
3. This drives an emphasis on local politics. Guild A living in the SE of the map cannot wage a campaign against Guild B living in the NW unless they abandon their home or divide their forces to put consistent pressure on the NW over a prolonged period of time. This makes it INCREDIBLY difficult for one or two groups to control the entire map unless the majority of MO2's active players are on their side.

 

[Kaemik]

OUTPOST MECHANICS

Capturing an Outpost:

First, all outposts have a militia. A militia is like guards except they share their stats with bandits, not guards. As a default outpost is guarded by 2 veteran militia and 3 regular militia. Once the entire militia is dead, standing inside the control point of the outpost (likely just a small area around a flag) begins capturing the outpost. At about 2:30 in and 5 minutes in, the militia spawns again but does not slow the time. They just have to be fought off once more. At 6 minutes the outpost is captured. Unlike Crowfall more players does not make the timer tick down faster.

The point of these two mechanics working side-by-side is they encourage small group play. No matter how many people you bring, it's a 6-minute timer to flip an outpost. But you need a group strong enough to fight off the militia, plus potentially some defenders. Once flipped the outpost generates influence for the group you support, makes tasks from it's task vendor do the same, and generates small sums of resources based on the location over time. Resources can be withdrawn at any point as long as you control the outpost. Flipping it DOES NOT reset resources, meaning if there was 5k granum in there when it got flipped, that 5k granum now belongs to the new owners.

Advanced Resource Generation:

While the placeholder system picks a resource appropriate to the area, eventually outposts would have an area around them in which all trees chopped, all rocks mined, and all carcasses generated through hunting generate resources in the outpost equal to 2% of the amount gathered. This is NOT a priority system. Just a way cooler system to have eventually as it encourages controlling more valuable high traffic areas / doing content in the area of an outpost you control.

Development Options:

While the placeholder systems generate set quantities of guards and resources. These features, to be included way later down the road as SV's resources allow, would allow an outpost to be developed. An outpost isn't meant to be home. They are meant to flip hands potentially many times within a day. But these fairly cheap and quick development options do kind of encourage groups to be like "This outpost is ours. We're going to hold and defend it today while we gather resources in the area and do tasks to generate influence for our alliance, so let's make it as good as possible while we do."

Taking an outpost some zerg came along, claimed, and abandoned is content for 3-5 players if unopposed, maybe even a single player with a build very good at clearing bandits and a lot of player-skill to back that up. Taking an outpost people upgraded to max and are actively mounting a defense of, should take 5-10 more attackers than defenders assuming equal skill and tactics.

Armory

The armory spawns militia. Upgrading it increases the number and strength of the militia spawned.

Feeding gear into the armor generates a value based on all 3 damage types combined (weapons) or all 3 protection ratings combined (armor). It's basically a mechanic designed to give some value to weapons/armor looted in PvP that you don't want. Beyond feeding in gear, taking tasks to kill bandits, risars, sators etc. in the area also gives points.

Pallisades

Pallisades are a wall around an outpost. A WEAK wall. It should take a group of 3-5 players minutes to cut through it with melee weapons. Outposts should NEVER require siege equipment to claim, as their ownership is not meant to be that permanent. Pallisades are built using wood and upgraded using stone+wood. The type of wood+stone affects it's health.

Archery Towers

Archery towers can be added once the armory is upgraded beyond a certain point. They add archer NPCs that are long-range, accurate, and difficult to reach in melee. They cost wood to construct and wood+stone to upgrade. The type of wood+stone affects their health and gives an HP buff to the archer stationed on them.

Labor Camp

Through upgrading the labor camp you can upgrade outpost resource generation from 2% of materials gathered nearby to 5%. This is done by either doing gathering/trade tasks from the task vendor. Or by feeding in gold.

War Horn

The warhorn alerts players from your alliance when your outpost's militia are engaged in combat.

A simple warhorn / warhorn platform are made from wood. It is then upgraded by adding a bone/horn material to make a proper warhorn. Which can be further upgraded by adding a metal component. Warhorns are built with engineering and the materials used affect the range of the signal. Warhorns only alert the area fairly immediately around the outpost but are instant.

Signal Fires

Signal fires alert nearby friendly outposts and keeps of an attack on any outpost in the region (and then relay it via their warhorns). They take a maximum time of 6 minutes to alert an outpost on the other side of the region (Won't be able to save it but at least you know it fell). Certain wood types and more upgrades reduce the alert time.

Signal fires are built and upgraded using a mixture of wood and a plant or mineral additive.

 

[TheOxMan]

I want all this stuff!

 

[Kaemik]

Bumping this since it sounds like we're getting a lot of this with the exception of the emphasis on local politics and static outpost locations. Both of which would really enhance the TC system.

My fear of this system without the outpost and keep region mechanics is that you will get a few guilds that generate massive prominence in their home region and then run around the entire map claiming keeps with prominence they generate at home. This would be a pro-zerg, anti-small group mechanic. It makes TC a system exclusive to a few mega zergs.

The addition of outposts and keep regions means that control of a region is going to really be decided by constant small group fights over the outposts of that region, with the climax of the conflict being the siege. This severely limits the ability for one group to control the entire map, and puts a lot of emphasis on consistent skirmishes for control of the region. Small groups wouldn't own keeps most likely, but they still have a chance to have a meaningful impact by supporting or opposing larger groups.

I actually wouldn't mind seeing something like influence generated in a keep region gives a % of that influence to other keep regions that share a border with it. (The % being a bit based on how much of their borders they share / how close they are) But still, I would love for small skirmishes in a local area to be a huge determining factor in who controls a region.

 

[Hodo]

This is really well thought out, I like all of it. Now whether or not we get something like that is another story.