Castle Siege Cycle

Blaspherian · August 3

So, Steven has said in multiple interviews cited on the wiki that the Castle Node Sieges in weeks 1, 2, 3 and the Castle Siege itself in week 4 are "automated/happen automatically", what exactly does this mean? What happens if there are no attacking guilds that sign up for the weekly sieges or no guilds declare siege during week 4? Does the castle get sieged by NPCs? Does the castle owner get a free month? If uncontested, do they have to do anything?

I've done a lot of digging. Can't find the answer.

Neox365 · August 3

Would like to know aswell.

Laetitian · August 3

So my suspicion is that the answer to this question on its own won't tell you much, because we don't know how much a delaration scroll is going to cost.
There is, for example, a possibility that cost scales with competition. In which case a castle seeing absolutely no contestation wouldn't really ever happen, at least not in the first 2-3 years.

Otr · August 3

Blaspherian wrote: »

Does the castle get sieged by NPCs? Does the castle owner get a free month? If uncontested, do they have to do anything?

NPCs do not attack. This is a PvP event only.
If nobody attacks then those who own them will keep owning them else it would be so easy to remove owners by not fighting...

The longer the owners retain the castle the stronger their benefits become.
https://youtu.be/cqDjAzZ2gAQ?t=6319

Aszkalon · August 3

Castle Knowledge is nice and dandy,

but i still want a noice Summoner-Footage Presentation plus more Knowledge about Nodes in general Please.

How about Baronies ?
How about Guild Halls in these Baronies ?

How about a hopefully nice Showcase of how Freeholds and their Baronies can function from the first Node-Stage up in which they are present ?

Moooaaar.

Otr · August 3

Laetitian wrote: »

So my suspicion is that the answer to this question on its own won't tell you much, because we don't know how much a delaration scroll is going to cost.
There is, for example, a possibility that cost scales with competition. In which case a castle seeing absolutely no contestation wouldn't really ever happen, at least not in the first 2-3 years.

Why would the game discourage attacking and besieging the castles be increasing the cost?
These events exist to encourage PvP every week.

Blaspherian · August 3

Otr wrote: »

NPCs do not attack. This is a PvP event only.

In theory, at it's core, yes it is a PvP event. In concept and design, I'd argue it's a PvX event. I imagine it will become more and more PvP centric as time goes on and servers mature. But, considering that unowned castles start out as owned by NPCs, requiring a raid boss to be killed; castle owners can hire mercenary NPCs as defenders; weekly tax carts from castle nodes are NPC-generated in weeks 1,2,3; and talk surrounding certain siege objectives potentially being instanced and requiring PvE, it's not a straight up PvP event. It's not that black and white. Therefore, I can't rule it out as a possibility. If that info is out there, I haven't been able to find it, hence the post.

Otr wrote: »

If nobody attacks then those who own them will keep owning them else it would be so easy to remove owners by not fighting...

Link? Where is it said that castle owners maintain ownership without a siege? Cause with the information at hand right now, I could also just speculate the opposite. That if a player-owned castle isn't sieged at the end of the month, it reverts to being owned by NPCs.

Otr wrote: »

The longer the owners retain the castle the stronger their benefits become.
https://youtu.be/cqDjAzZ2gAQ?t=6319

Hadn't seen that vid in awhile. Unfortunately, it doesn't answer my OP or tell me anything I didn't know already. Cheers

Blaspherian · August 3

Laetitian wrote: »

So my suspicion is that the answer to this question on its own won't tell you much, because we don't know how much a delaration scroll is going to cost.
There is, for example, a possibility that cost scales with competition. In which case a castle seeing absolutely no contestation wouldn't really ever happen, at least not in the first 2-3 years.

I've thought about scroll cost and it's impact on competition. That's getting ahead of the root of my question. The server and it's castle owners will settle in and establish themselves over X amount of time and then competition will perpetuate itself from there throughout the life of the game. What happens in let's say, the first six months post-launch, when not all of the castles have owners or have not been sieged yet. Or hardcore siege guild A takes a castle in the first week, and it's would-be competitors don't get to that guild level til a month or 2 down the road, at which point it's maybe easier or more efficient for them to claim one of the other unowned castles. Hardcore siege guild A could go months without any real competition. Or another weird thought..All of the guilds in a given castle region are satisfied for the time being, economically, competitively or otherwise. There lies my question, what exactly happens in week 1,2,3,4 to uncontested castles?

rollox · August 3

Blaspherian wrote: »

Or hardcore siege guild A takes a castle in the first week, and it's would-be competitors don't get to that guild level til a month or 2 down the road

I could see on a server or two that maybe hardcore siege guild A forms a second siege guild A 2 group. And takes a second castle. Especially if they are the first to claim a castle and it goes weeks without any other castles on the map getting claimed. Siege group A just simply assists their alliance guild or mule guild in effort to claim those also

Blaspherian · August 3

rollox wrote: »

Blaspherian wrote: »

Or hardcore siege guild A takes a castle in the first week, and it's would-be competitors don't get to that guild level til a month or 2 down the road

I could see on a server or two that maybe hardcore siege guild A forms a second siege guild A 2 group. And takes a second castle. Especially if they are the first to claim a castle and it goes weeks without any other castles on the map getting claimed. Siege group A just simply assists their alliance guild or mule guild in effort to claim those also

For sure. It's gonna be wild to see how servers develop in the first few months. Hell, I could even see all of the first big castle guilds propping each other up in the beginning to incite competition. I played a game called Empyrion: Galactic Survival (Rust/meets Minecraft/meets space, Indie Eve adjacent) I was among the commanding officers for the strongest PvP guild on our server. After a couple of seasons of diminishing competition we started giving resources, ammo, and ship designs to up-and-coming guilds so we'd have people to fight.

Otr · August 3

Blaspherian wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

NPCs do not attack. This is a PvP event only.

In theory, at it's core, yes it is a PvP event. In concept and design, I'd argue it's a PvX event. I imagine it will become more and more PvP centric as time goes on and servers mature. But, considering that unowned castles start out as owned by NPCs, requiring a raid boss to be killed; castle owners can hire mercenary NPCs as defenders; weekly tax carts from castle nodes are NPC-generated in weeks 1,2,3; and talk surrounding certain siege objectives potentially being instanced and requiring PvE, it's not a straight up PvP event. It's not that black and white. Therefore, I can't rule it out as a possibility. If that info is out there, I haven't been able to find it, hence the post.

Otr wrote: »

If nobody attacks then those who own them will keep owning them else it would be so easy to remove owners by not fighting...

Link? Where is it said that castle owners maintain ownership without a siege? Cause with the information at hand right now, I could also just speculate the opposite. That if a player-owned castle isn't sieged at the end of the month, it reverts to being owned by NPCs.

Otr wrote: »

The longer the owners retain the castle the stronger their benefits become.
https://youtu.be/cqDjAzZ2gAQ?t=6319

Hadn't seen that vid in awhile. Unfortunately, it doesn't answer my OP or tell me anything I didn't know already. Cheers

When we don't have enough information, then we can extrapolate based on what we have, considering a healthy populated server.
1) The initial npcs are there to prevent players occupying those castles at server launch when everyone is level 1 and there normal nodes didn't yet leveled up. They are like a barrier.

2) The castle owners, beside getting taxes like greedy owners, they can also provide benefits to the land. They need the support of those who pay the taxes:
"It will be possible, but very difficult for a single guild to fully develop these nodes. They will likely need assistance from the broader community.[31]"
That means if the owners have the full support of the tax payers, it makes no sense for the game to undermine them just because nobody attacks them.

3) Steven would mention NPC sieges as a game mechanic. We know NPCs create a pressure onto nodes through the corrupted areas
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Corrupted_areas
If players fail to address these corrupted areas, the frequency of NPC events against their node will increase. These can lead to node buildings and services being disabled, increasing the node's vulnerability to node sieges.[11]
This case is more relevant if players start leaving the game.

Even if such events can eventually lead to castles being taken back by NPCs, I doubt it will happen because the normal nodes don't de-level either:

A previous design concept was that nodes could delevel based on accumulated atrophy.[12][2]

There are intrinsic problems with reducing a nodes level as opposed to removing the node and it may be possible I'm just gonna say now that we don't actually atrophy nodes to delevel but rather accrue atrophy points that must be replenished over time; and if not it begins to disable services and further compound the atrophy problem; at which point when it reaches a certain atrophy point then the node would just disappear.[12] – Steven Sharif

4) So if players leave the server, based on what we have in wiki now, abandoned nodes and castles will rather suddenly reset to their initial state than developers implementing an NPC siege just in case a few players are still around to watch and defend.

Blaspherian · August 3

Otr wrote: »

2) ...it makes no sense for the game to undermine them just because nobody attacks them.

3) Steven would mention NPC sieges as a game mechanic. We know NPCs create a pressure onto nodes through the corrupted areas
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Corrupted_areas

I feel like your point 3 contradicts the end of your point 2. Your point 3 proves that there are already other NPC driven systems in the game that are intended to force change. And like you said, to extrapolate based on what we have, I can say that if a castle goes uncontested, NPCs sieging "their" castle back seems to be in the realm of possibility.

Do I think that will happen? I don't know. Is that pure speculation? Yes. But that's kind of my point lol, because we don't have that info. My OP isn't even latched onto the idea of NPC siege. The root of the OP is Steven's consistent use of the words "automated" and "will happen automatically" in regards to castle node sieges in weeks 1,2,3 and castle siege in week 4. What does "These sieges are automated." mean? Is it just to denote that castle siege is only possible during these timeframes, at these intervals? Or is it indicative of an underlying automated siege system that will take place whether or not there are attacking guilds in place to interact with it? Because it's unclear. If the former is the case, he could leave out the words automated/automatic and just tell us the timeframes/intervals at which castle nodes/castles can be sieged. And preferably, follow up with exactly what does the castle owner experience at these intervals if there are no attacking guilds who declare siege.

Otr wrote: »

4) So if players leave the server, based on what we have in wiki now, abandoned nodes and castles will rather suddenly reset to their initial state than developers implementing an NPC siege just in case a few players are still around to watch and defend.

I'm not talking far future, or even population decline, let alone abandonment. This is going to be something to consider shortly post-launch, as servers are developing and before all castles become occupied.

Ludullu · August 3

Blaspherian wrote: »

I feel like your point 3 contradicts the end of your point 2. Your point 3 proves that there are already other NPC driven systems in the game that are intended to force change. And like you said, to extrapolate based on what we have, I can say that if a castle goes uncontested, NPCs sieging "their" castle back seems to be in the realm of possibility.

This would be a HUGE feature, which would have to be mentioned when describing the overall system.

So why exactly would Steven NOT mention it in all of his explanations of how the castle sieges will work?

Yes, we can extrapolate all kinds of shit. That extrapolation is the reason why these forums are still alive. People keep extrapolating any vague statement towards their own preference and yell "THIS IS THE WAY IT'S GONNA BE 100% FRFR".

Right now I see no way for castles to be taken over by mobs if not attacked by players. I WANT that feature, because I'd love if npcs could be used in player attacks as well and could even potentially overtake the siege if they were too strong (I had a full suggestion based on this).

But the fact that Steven NOT ONCE mentioned a feature like this - there's no reason to assume that it would be the case.

Blaspherian · August 3

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Blaspherian wrote: »

I feel like your point 3 contradicts the end of your point 2. Your point 3 proves that there are already other NPC driven systems in the game that are intended to force change. And like you said, to extrapolate based on what we have, I can say that if a castle goes uncontested, NPCs sieging "their" castle back seems to be in the realm of possibility.

This would be a HUGE feature, which would have to be mentioned when describing the overall system.

So why exactly would Steven NOT mention it in all of his explanations of how the castle sieges will work?

Yes, we can extrapolate all kinds of shit. That extrapolation is the reason why these forums are still alive. People keep extrapolating any vague statement towards their own preference and yell "THIS IS THE WAY IT'S GONNA BE 100% FRFR".

Right now I see no way for castles to be taken over by mobs if not attacked by players. I WANT that feature, because I'd love if npcs could be used in player attacks as well and could even potentially overtake the siege if they were too strong (I had a full suggestion based on this).

But the fact that Steven NOT ONCE mentioned a feature like this - there's no reason to assume that it would be the case.

So do you know an answer to my OP? Cause I don't see one here. I never assumed anything. It was a speculative question (among others in my OP) based on Steven's confusing and consistent usage of the words "automated" and "will happen automatically" in regards to castle node sieges and castle sieges.

Ludullu · August 3

Blaspherian wrote: »

So do you know an answer to my OP? Cause I don't see one here. I never assumed anything. It was a speculative question (among others in my OP) based on Steven's confusing and consistent usage of the words "automated" and "will happen automatically" in regards to castle node sieges and castle sieges.

There is no direct answer, because this question was never asked, because asking it always seemed silly. You're the first one silly enough to ask it, so you're free to ask it on the next monthly q&a

Otr · August 3

Blaspherian wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

2) ...it makes no sense for the game to undermine them just because nobody attacks them.

3) Steven would mention NPC sieges as a game mechanic. We know NPCs create a pressure onto nodes through the corrupted areas
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Corrupted_areas

I feel like your point 3 contradicts the end of your point 2. Your point 3 proves that there are already other NPC driven systems in the game that are intended to force change. And like you said, to extrapolate based on what we have, I can say that if a castle goes uncontested, NPCs sieging "their" castle back seems to be in the realm of possibility.

Those NPC events which create pressure onto the normal nodes are meant to make people who might focus only on gathering and crafting to group and defend their structures. Adds variation to daily activities.
The castle nodes are just PvP events, not meant to become PvE, on a server dominated by 2-3 very popular PvE focused streamers.

Blaspherian wrote: »

What does "These sieges are automated." mean? Is it just to denote that castle siege is only possible during these timeframes, at these intervals? Or is it indicative of an underlying automated siege system that will take place whether or not there are attacking guilds in place to interact with it? Because it's unclear. If the former is the case, he could leave out the words automated/automatic and just tell us the timeframes/intervals at which castle nodes/castles can be sieged.

Server prime-time
Objective-based PvP events such as node sieges, castle sieges, guild wars, and node wars will occur within a prime-time window somewhere between 3PM and 9PM server realm time. This is subject to testing.[5][6][94]

The automated part in the castle sieges is the caravan system, which follows a predetermined route. That is needed because players will join either to destroy them or to protect them, and the caravan driver is supposed to be neutral.

Blaspherian wrote: »

Do I think that will happen? I don't know. Is that pure speculation? Yes.

The game-play will be balanced so that there is resource scarcity.
If the castle owners don't buff the ZoI, citizens which pays them will be unhappy and are supposed to go fight against them.
If they don't fight but accept them as selfish rulers and still enjoy the game doing something else, then Steven failed to properly balance the game and it is unlikely to add NPCs to attack those castles as a fun PvE event.
He will go and try to understand why players don't want to PvP

Blaspherian · August 3

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Blaspherian wrote: »

So do you know an answer to my OP? Cause I don't see one here. I never assumed anything. It was a speculative question (among others in my OP) based on Steven's confusing and consistent usage of the words "automated" and "will happen automatically" in regards to castle node sieges and castle sieges.

There is no direct answer, because this question was never asked, because asking it always seemed silly. You're the first one silly enough to ask it, so you're free to ask it on the next monthly q&a

Doesn't have answer. Gets passive aggressive. Lol nice. That's forums for you I guess. I've seen you post in lots of siege related threads. You're not curious about what happens if a castle goes uncontested? Cause castle siege happens "automatically" as Steven puts it. Castle guild shows up for siege. There are no attackers. Castle guild sits stuck in castle for 2 hours til "siege" is over. Sounds super lame.

Ludullu · August 4

Blaspherian wrote: »

You're not curious about what happens if a castle goes uncontested? Cause castle siege happens "automatically" as Steven puts it. Castle guild shows up for siege. There are no attackers. Castle guild sits stuck in castle for 2 hours til "siege" is over. Sounds super lame.

My current assumption is that it's gonna be same as L2's sieges, because the general approach has been the same.

If there were no registered attackers - the siege simply immediately ends. Same as it ends once the castle gets its ownership changed during the siege.

Neither of those designs are intersting, which is why I brought up a concern with the latter, and suggested a solution for the former.

But, as I already said, "castle goes to mobs" would be a ginormous part of the system. So a complete omission of this kind of design indicates to me that there's no such feature in the current design.

You're obviously free to believe what you want to believe and are completely free to ask about this on the next q&a, just as we all do for any question we have about the game. If you watched this last showcase - you'd know that my question about sieges was answered. So yes, I am curious about sieges.

It's just that I do not believe we will see even a single castle siege where there's no attackers. Castle benefits are simply too high for that to happen.

Blaspherian · August 4

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

It's just that I do not believe we will see even a single castle siege where there's no attackers. Castle benefits are simply too high for that to happen.

If that's how it plays out that would be cool. I just think there's a chance for this to happen during the first few months post-launch while servers are developing. I want to know what exactly happens if there are no attackers.
And I want to know what Steven means when he says castle node sieges and castle sieges will be "automated". Cause I know in BDO recently when they moved to a more automated Node War system, it was a mess. Some guilds ended up stuck in the war with no one to fight, some guilds ended up with a 1v8 or something obscene.

Blaspherian · August 4

Otr wrote: »

The automated part in the castle sieges is the caravan system, which follows a predetermined route. That is needed because players will join either to destroy them or to protect them, and the caravan driver is supposed to be neutral.

Yes, this is true. I understand this. I don't have a question about this. In 3+ interviews cited on the wiki under the castle siege page, Steven describes CASTLE NODE SIEGES and CASTLE SIEGES as being "automated" or that they will "happen automatically". I'm trying to figure out what this means. None of your replies answer that or answer what happens during/after these sieges if there are no attackers. Thanks though.

Ludullu · August 4

Blaspherian wrote: »

And I want to know what Steven means when he says castle node sieges and castle sieges will be "automated".

That wording is why I believe it's the same as L2. Its sieges started automatically as well. The game itself determined the time of the siege and would start the siege no matter what. The only thing that players needed to do is register. And if no one did - the siege would immediately end.

That's the automation. There's never been a word about npcs being involved in sieges on their own. There's been words of bosses being present for buffs, or npc mercs being hireable, but neither of those relate to getting ownership of the castle.

But the main point here is this. You won't get an answer from us, because any of our answers are based on wiki and what Steven has said (which is on the wiki). So if the wiki doesn't have an answer - we won't as well. So you just need to ask that in the monthly q&a and hope your question gets picked.

Otr · August 4

Blaspherian wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

The automated part in the castle sieges is the caravan system, which follows a predetermined route. That is needed because players will join either to destroy them or to protect them, and the caravan driver is supposed to be neutral.

Yes, this is true. I understand this. I don't have a question about this. In 3+ interviews cited on the wiki under the castle siege page, Steven describes CASTLE NODE SIEGES and CASTLE SIEGES as being "automated" or that they will "happen automatically". I'm trying to figure out what this means. None of your replies answer that or answer what happens during/after these sieges if there are no attackers. Thanks though.

What we do here on forum a lot is theorycraft.
While you avoid saying that NPC driven sieges is a suggestion or a wish from your side, it is clear that if someone would give you this tool (NPCs able to siege) you would add it to castle sieges.
You have to understand how such an action would make the game worse.
If you achieve that, then you will understand why Steven would not do the same.
I've given you all the info and you ended up removing them when you quoted.

Blaspherian · August 4

Otr wrote: »

Blaspherian wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

The automated part in the castle sieges is the caravan system, which follows a predetermined route. That is needed because players will join either to destroy them or to protect them, and the caravan driver is supposed to be neutral.

Yes, this is true. I understand this. I don't have a question about this. In 3+ interviews cited on the wiki under the castle siege page, Steven describes CASTLE NODE SIEGES and CASTLE SIEGES as being "automated" or that they will "happen automatically". I'm trying to figure out what this means. None of your replies answer that or answer what happens during/after these sieges if there are no attackers. Thanks though.

What we do here on forum a lot is theorycraft.
While you avoid saying that NPC driven sieges is a suggestion or a wish from your side, it is clear that if someone would give you this tool (NPCs able to siege) you would add it to castle sieges.
You have to understand how such an action would make the game worse.
If you achieve that, then you will understand why Steven would not do the same.
I've given you all the info and you ended up removing them when you quoted.

It's pretty simple. Just remove my hypothetical question about NPC siege (not sure why you assume I'm so attached to that idea). My OP still has 4 other questions. Your info didn't answer any of them. Maybe we as a community don't have those answers yet. I posted to find out because I couldn't find the answers myself. Thanks for trying.

Castle Siege Cycle

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