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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
How hard should it be to siege a castle?
Ok the last of the 3 nodes have fallen, now on to the main event, your guild is going for the castle of the other guild.
How hard in your mind will it be to take this place down?
Even without knowing how in AoC it will work, base your thoughts on how it worked in history.
To me a castle shouldn't fail so easy, it should take time to bring down even just one of the walls, let alone the gates of the place.
So how do you see it working in AoC?
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For example, the resources gathered by caravans to the castle will add up to how long the castle can withstand a siege. This then equates to, for example, number of respawns for defenders, or a bigger pool for hit points on the capture point.
If the attackers are more prepared, then they get the advantage, having more respawns or more siege engines.
But on the flip side, the actual fighting should be based on skill of the players attacking. I wouldnt want the bonus from pre-siege work trump actual PvP skill, bit rather just increase the challenge. A good PvP guild should still have the advantage over a guild just with numbers and resources, although it will be somewhat minimized by their resources.
Ultimately, I'd like to see castles changing hands as being somewhat of a rarity. Only the most skilled, organized (or sneakiest) guilds should own them. I think it would devalue their appeal if they constantly changed hands. Let taking a castle be a challenge that a guild must work for, possibly for months in advance.
Make castle sieges epic.
If we have a 2 hour window and a huge buildup time the last thing they can do it have the walls come down easy. Victory for either side shouldn't be obvious for at least an hour.
Put any and all build styles and guild capabilities to the test via different environments.
Defenders need to earn their reward and prove their metal.
Attackers need to be given choices.
The castle needs the facility to be probed in many ways for weaknesses by a variety of specialist builds.
I would like all castles to start with a group of well thought out AI bandits or what-nots. Initially I don't think castles should be "you're the first guild to find it, here you go."
Make "PvP events" depend more on PvP factors and less on PvE factors please, with sugar on top.
What about an attrition system where if the attackers attack the nearby farms and mills, they could starve the castle/node of resources. Thus quickening the battle or prolonging it. With the time limits that are going to be implemented this would be harder to do, but it could be possible.
P.S. I am picturing ESO's siege system with the farms and mills around the castles in the pvp zones.
How many players are actually active in the defense
and vice versa for the investment in the attack and the number of attackers
This includes not too harsh punishment for attacking greens. We don't wish carebear hand holding, PvP should happen often because it's not de-incentivised too much, which will in turn make game more challenging.
I do think that Ashes should not be a hold your hand walk through the park. I think a lot of the more easy MMO's out there are too easy because of P2W mechanics. Having to earn everything or craft everything yourself might help keep the difficulty level a little higher naturally.
lol, it's still player vs. player, regardless if one player wants to defend himself, or to commit a suicide.
It's not player vs rock, it's also not player vs. fish, and it's definitely not player vs. air, since another player is being hit.
So it is PvP.
You don't have to agree, but if you attack someone that doesn't fight back and you kill them and think to yourself "that was awesome PvP" I would find that odd.
Either way, I think the castles should definitely be PvP and I can't imagine any guild mates obtaining a castle and then going green when attacked. So I am not sure why the penalty of killing greens came up, and I am sorry for assisting in the derailment of this thread.
I believe that guild mates should have to do some PvE to maintain their resources, level their controlled nodes, and strengthen their defenses. I think the level of effort of PvE they put in should relate to an advantage in PvP when attacked. This would help tie them both together making them both meaningful and altering the difficulty depending on guild efforts.
That's exactly what i vote against.
This is another way of catering to PvE carebears, that will farm to build up their castle to impenetrable status to avoid PvP as much as possible.
It boils down to this: if PvP crowd sees that game caters too much to PvE play style and neglects the PvP, they will not come to play.
If I see AoC turns to PvE carebear land, I will be the first one that will not play it, and I guarantee you, none of the PvP crowd will.
That's it, as simple as that. And this means not only less profit to IS, but also an early game death, because PvE games in general die early.
Special note: it's not only this one thing that turns the game to PvE, but it's the principle, crumb by crumb, harsh punishment for attacking greens, PvE elements being significant factors in PvP events, sieges happening rarely, etc.
All this together, piece by piece, destroy PvP inside a PvX game, and game becomes PvE, regardless of how developers call it.
Sieges are static, every 2 weeks, at a preassigned time the castle goes into siege mode, the whole area of domain becomes a PvP zone.
There is a gate and walls. Gate can be attacked by players, walls must be attacked with siege engines, catapults ect. Gate is more defensive by the players inside the castle and above the gates shooting down. Breaching these walls or gate gets you into the courtyard. There is then a gate to breach into the castle itself.
Inside the castle itself somewhere (lots of fighting along the way) is the signing crystal. A guild member or leader must sign (cast) on the crystal for some 2 min without interruption, then the castle flips, owners change hands, previous members are ejected.
There is also a life crystal in the courtyard, this must be destroyed. It allows the defenders to re-spawn into the throne room every 30 sec as they die if not destroyed.
Attackers can erect a tent outside of the walls, this is vulnerable to dmg and destruction, but will facilitate attackers spawning back while it remains alive. It is not free, cost gold ect to erect.
Defenders should always hold the advantage, just the way it is.
I'm not sure it will be exactly like this, but I would expect something very similar. If you have never played a siege in Lineage 2 with hundreds of people on the field and all out war on every side....its F-ing awesome. Better than ESO because it actually matters when you get to keep it for a while and the castle is interactive and meaningful. L2 castle owners enjoyed tax rates, a private dungeon to raid, special items to buy/craft, buffs, and teleports (i know, no fast travel here).
I would personally add a feature that would would cap how many consecutive cycles one clan can own a castle. Stagnation can occur if one clan gets a firm grip on all the resources in an area/server and there is no viable plan other than wait until they get bored and quit. This may be not a problem if there is not RMT/P2W/Cheating however, as these have always been the reason one clan would dominate for extended periods of time.
-CS
This is a PvX game, not a PvP game.
If the PvE crowd couldn't build defences and gather the resources necessary for that, then the PvE aspect would be non-existent.
It does sound like they took PvE into account whole heartedley with the ability to peacefully elect a leader for a node. This would be the PvE equivalent to taking a castle by force, and arguably a more powerful reward.
Perhaps you could argue that the castle itself is something you must fight, witch is true, but its more of a tool to the defenders than an entity.
The PvE part of a siege is all done previously and is reflected in your level and gear (in a non P2W game).
History has shown us that war is every bit the as inventive as farming.
I don't think the whole thing should be something that can be negated by PvE, nor do I believe IS feels that way. I also think preventing some guild members from participating where their strengths are is detrimental to the PvX aspect of the entire game.
Castles should require an influx of resources to maintain, this should be where the PvE lives. PvE players that can build/strengthen walls/siege-equipment should also be a thing, but both sides should have access to equal advantages from that.
The overall difficulty should be a factor of the guilds ability to either balance both well, or exceed in only one. Why can't a PvE guild own and maintain a castle if they have awesome defenses and hire mercenaries*? Other PvP guilds will have to fight the mercenaries, does it matter if they are in the guild or not?
*I don't think a PvE guild should be able to negate PvP. They should be able to outsource it though.