Mayor & Siege Leader Diplomatic & Concept ideas

Tyrantor · August 2020

I've been thinking about some interesting thoughts on how to make Sieges have some interesting stories and outcomes outside of "Side A beat Side B".

Examples:

Military Node: Mayor and Siege leader begin the siege by picking players to duel (1v1(or other vs ratio)) and then the winners of this fight can continue to challenge the opposing side until some variable or condition has been met and then the war begins. - The theory here is that the military node mayor is decided by combat, it would be a unique feature to allow single or small group combat to highlight the siege before battle that could be spectated inside of the already build arena in the city. The winners of their individual fights would gain some reward or recognition/title for their fights possible expanded on if the same person(s) are able to win multiple engagements/all.

Note: Since I don't get paid for this i'm only going to now suggest some simply concept that can be visualized by all of us to expand the conversation via forums or dev team outside of here.

Other Nodes: Mayors and his IC would meet (on the battle field) before the siege begins with the Siege Leader and their command - think of the movies where people ride out on horses before battle and discuss terms, only in the game we would see mounts/flying mounts from both sides meet and discuss terms. The sides could decide potential terms some of the following would be suggestions:
1) Mayor could surrender city directly to the opposing siege leader at the cost of $1 million gold (or other figure) from the mayor that goes directly to the city's treasury.
2) Mayor and Siege leader could agree that the node would not be destroyed beyond level 3 - in this scenario the Mayor would also be removed but at no cost of gold.
3) Mayor and Siege leader could engage in single combat - losing side receives a -buff (loss of moral) and winning side receives a +buff.
4) No terms (this could be established by one side opting out of this meet prior to siege).

Tyrantor · August 2020

For discussion purposes regarding diplomacy - does anyone think it would be a good feature to allow a mayor to essentially surrender the siege (with consequence) as a means to protect his citizens real estate and time investment to achieve the current node status? I believe offering some sort of parlay (per above) would be an interesting way to achieve this in addition to saving the attacking force more time and money to effectively siege the city for the same outcome at a greater cost to all participating via siege equipment and time.

For example maybe no one logged in to defend the city or the attacking force is 5x as big and the mayor doesn't want to risk everything he built be destroyed.

Just a thought as one drawback to siege gameplay in Shadowbane was when the defending side gave up/logged out after multiple failed attempts to stop the attackers the result was basically just attacking forces burning down empty cities with no PVP. It was extremely boring and since the end result was the attacking side taking over the sieged city, the time and bordom could have been resolved by giving the above option or some variation(s) of it. In shadowbane the real estate was important but GUILD controlled so a feature like this wouldn't have made a ton of sense because why would the defending guild care to spare them attacking side by giving them a more advanced city - however in this game the attacking side and defending side can still benefit from a more developed node.

Xenotor · August 2020

Tyrantor wrote: »

For discussion purposes regarding diplomacy - does anyone think it would be a good feature to allow a mayor to essentially surrender the siege (with consequence) as a means to protect his citizens real estate and time investment to achieve the current node status? I believe offering some sort of parlay (per above) would be an interesting way to achieve this in addition to saving the attacking force more time and money to effectively siege the city for the same outcome at a greater cost to all participating via siege equipment and time.

For example maybe no one logged in to defend the city or the attacking force is 5x as big and the mayor doesn't want to risk everything he built be destroyed.

Just a thought as one drawback to siege gameplay in Shadowbane was when the defending side gave up/logged out after multiple failed attempts to stop the attackers the result was basically just attacking forces burning down empty cities with no PVP. It was extremely boring and since the end result was the attacking side taking over the sieged city, the time and bordom could have been resolved by giving the above option or some variation(s) of it. In shadowbane the real estate was important but GUILD controlled so a feature like this wouldn't have made a ton of sense because why would the defending guild care to spare them attacking side by giving them a more advanced city - however in this game the attacking side and defending side can still benefit from a more developed node.

i would not play a game if the major gets the power to surrender.
Far to much potential abuse.
Im not even sure Intrepid could even implement that.
I believe the current system were the node is reset to level 0 after successful siege came after they realized that they could not make a node lose just 1 level.
Technical problems in short.
It has most likely to do with the buildings.
As nodes level up more plot of lands are unlocked.
How would you decide what buildings and player houses would be destroyed if you delevel a node.
Better to just have the node go back to 1 upon loose.

Tyrantor · August 2020

Per the Atrophy section in the wiki it seems that they could go down 1 level.

From Wiki:
Node atrophy (deleveling)
Nodes can delevel based on node atrophy.[2]

For discussion purposes maybe the surrender option is not available until the attacking force reaches a specific objective - I agree there should be consequences for this so the mayor's can't just choose to give up for no reason with no cost to them. Furthermore I believe the surrender option should be deniable by the attacking force, if the attackers was promised blood and pillage they should get it.

However the developers may want to consider for the sake of game play the potential for the defending side to give up. Once this happens if there is no mechanic in the game to move this forward the destruction of the node becomes mundane and boring. In addition to that the attacking side may have interest in planting their flag so to speak by gaining the Mayorship to the city instead of reducing the node down to nothing and having no control/mayor option.

I've watched hundreds of cities burn and very rarely did the defenders fight to the end. There was almost always a breaking point when the mass log off happened - at that point if the attacking side would accept surrender why keep pressing the matter for everyones sake the game play is reduced to boredom i.e. attacking buildings with siege weapons, the novelty of this wears off pretty fast.

Furthermore it seems that the benefit of halting a siege would benefit the defending side in this scenario as some of the homes, guild halls etc could potentially be saved and limit looting/loss exposure.

Anyway I do agree that giving a mayor the option to just give up would be completely lame - there has to be loss associated with that tied to the mayor significant enough to make them reconsider. I would leave you with a scenario that could happen, say one guild has acquired lots of real estate within a node, maybe they also control a lot of the free hold area(s). If the Mayor is part of this guild - it could be in their best interest to keep these in tact and not risk the punishments of losing the node defense. In my opinion it also benefits all other members of the city who also have financial ties to it.

I would like to hear if people see a major draw back to defenders keeping the city, but having the mayor uprooted by force without the destruction (or) full destruction of the node would make any sense. I'm not really following why anyone would want to completely destroy a node outside of PVE conquest or changing the node type (military, economic etc). However in other pvp/diplomatic failure type scenarios it seems more likely the attacking side would want to keep the node in tact IF they were able to essentially claim it at some point above level 3.

Noaani · August 2020

Tyrantor wrote: »

Per the Atrophy section in the wiki it seems that they could go down 1 level .

The wiki isn't always up to date, and sometimes (in this case) Intrepid say they are thinking of changing a system without really giving details of the system they are thinking about.

Intrepid have said that node delivering may indeed not be a thing, as there are issues.

If they do not work through those issues, but rather get rid of node deleveling, then node atrophy will see services in nodes cease to function rather than the node level drop.

I hope they are able to work the issues out, personally, but they may not be able to.

Khronus · August 2020

Surrendering a city is where I kind of stopped paying attention to be honest. That would be horrible. Not to mention that money goes into the city that now that new mayor would then own again?

I would prefer if the node reset to lvl 0. Once we are done with a node in an area, we as a community are going to want to build a node somewhere else to experience new content. We aren't going to want a top tier city in the same spot forever right?

Tyrantor · August 2020

From what I understand the nodes are in static locations so they won't move but new content could open up if a new node/race type develops the node. I'd ask you to finish reading so you can see the general explanation I used to explain why surrendering a node could benefit both sides.

If the node's can't go down incrementally any longer then that does add some difficulty to expand on this however - if they've got a new system in place that will replace that concept that could be used as an example here then maybe it's possible on the same basis.

loghan · August 2020

This is one of those rare situations where the wiki is misworded a bit, I have an edit request into Lex at the Wiki to clean it up a bit because his Wiki does have up to date info in regards to the new system of atrophy causing services to deactivate, rather than deleveling, but at the same time the wiki is misleading due to those old bullet points Tyrantor pointed out. To further create confusion, there's even an old News Article on the Ashes website itself that still incorrectly says there is node deleveling, I made a post about fixing that here with no success yet (maybe they just haven't read it yet, hopefully Toast is still creating weekly summaries from the forums to give to Margaret/Steven to read)

The edit requested removing the bullet point you pointed out "Nodes can delevel based on node atrophy.[21]"
(Suggest removing any references to deleveling on the page, and edit this to say) Node services can be deactivated due to a node's failure to maintain maintenance requirements.

Node Deleveling was their original plan but after a lot of internal debate and community posts (as much as some posters on the forums here say that we should never make suggestions and that the game is locked in stone this is one of many examples of how this is indeed still alpha-0 and even Steven's mind is not set in stone, that community posts and discussions do matter and do change what we will see in alpha/beta/release, and none of us are Judge Dread with the ultimate power or wisdom to decide what post is useful or not useful, hogwash to one reader may be a valid mechanic change to the Devs' ears. (This is not a ding against those who bring up the valid point as well that the forums would be a better place is people actually spent atleast a week doing heavy research on past posts and the wiki before suggesting things as big as changing the combat/node systems. Those complains are valid as well and worth saying here)

But back on topic, they have in the last year switched gears and now instead of deleveling a node, even a Metropolis will just straight up vanish if a siege is successful. This makes Metropolis even more so a temporary thing that will constantly change in Ashes and it really makes players want to defend it.

If you owned a home or shop in that metropolis, most but not all of your items will be mailed to you so that you can pretty easily find a new node and start a new home.

The other situation outside of successful sieges destroying a node, is atrophy, the failure of the node to pay its weekly maintenance costs. In this scenario once the node goes into debt, instead of deleveling, it stays the same tier of node. If it currently is a Tier 4 then it stays a tier 4, BUT... certain service providing buildings in the node will shut down. For example the Library and Smithy may shut down. If the maintenance debt continues to grow than more services shut down such as the stables and the harbor. If citizens get there shit together and get materials and kill near by mobs to gain exp for the node then all those services will come back online.

However, at some point the debt grows so large, and there are no other services to shut off, and at that point the node vanishes completely. All that is left visually is the graphical representation of a giant mound of rubble, ash, and random items and people will be able to loot from this rubble. However, like mentioned earlier, if you owned a shop, nearly all of your stuff is safe, it will be mailed to you, you only lose a little of it.

This method will be tested in Alpha/Beta, if they don't like it they may switch back to the Deleveling option.

“Through a siege you destroy a node, currently that is the plan” – Steven Sharif
Nodes Q&A – March 29, 2019 (timestamp 55:29) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Jw6jtWGPw=55m29s

Second instance of Steven saying it for those of you who love double confirmation (which takes a lot of effort to find!!)Jahlon Paradox Gaming interview with Steve: (1:02:33 thru 1:05:25) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWguiuv9iyY&feature=youtu.be&t=1h02m33s

loghan · August 2020

Tyrantor wrote: »

Examples: Military Node: Mayor and Siege leader begin the siege by picking players to duel (1v1(or other vs ratio)) and then the winners of this fight can continue to challenge the opposing side until some variable or condition has been met and then the war begins. - The theory here is that the military node mayor is decided by combat, it would be a unique feature to allow single or small group combat to highlight the siege before battle that could be spectated inside of the already build arena in the city. The winners of their individual fights would gain some reward or recognition/title for their fights possible expanded on if the same person(s) are able to win multiple engagements/all.

This particular idea I like as a military node unique feature, or heck maybe even let all node types do it. But the start of any siege can be delayed a bit if both mayors agree to 1vs1 combat that everyone can watch but not interrupt. Whichever mayor wins gives their side some sort of long duration stat boost, call it "Morale Boost of the Champion" This must be optional however because mayors may will not be top tier PvPers.

For many of your ideas, I am currently (can change during testing when I see things in action) against node leveling and prefer node destruction so many of your ideas will not be possible. One problem with like the idea of a mayor being able to just hand over their mayoralship to the attacker to avoid node destruction is that there are surrounding nodes, both nodes that are vassals but can't become a metropolis because that other one already is. As well as a non-vassal node that is a neighbor and can't upgrade to metropolis because they already are. In both cases, these near by nodes, whether vassals or not, are secretly harboring a greedy desire to level up their own node, for them to become a metropolis. So you can imagine these nodes will be willing to help siege if it means destruction (even a vassal node can help a siege against their parent by secretly transferring materials to the attackers before the fight begins).

But if the siege can just be ended by the mayor giving it up and handing it over and no destruction occurs then how pissed will those neighboring nodes be? It really removes the players' reason to even want to siege. Or I should say it hurts it far more than it helps it and as Steven has said in the past Ashes is meant to be a game of semi-frequent node turnover. That's why you don't lose too much as a player in that node even if the siege destroys it, they want starting over for the player to be easy and thus allow for frequent node destruction that won't cause players to quit the game for good.

Tyrantor · August 2020

loghan wrote: »

This particular idea I like as a military node unique feature, or heck maybe even let all node types do it. But the start of any siege can be delayed a bit if both mayors agree to 1vs1 combat that everyone can watch but not interrupt. Whichever mayor wins gives their side some sort of long duration stat boost, call it "Morale Boost of the Champion" This must be optional however because mayors may will not be top tier PvPers.

For many of your ideas, I am currently (can change during testing when I see things in action) against node leveling and prefer node destruction so many of your ideas will not be possible. One problem with like the idea of a mayor being able to just hand over their mayoralship to the attacker to avoid node destruction is that there are surrounding nodes, both nodes that are vassals but can't become a metropolis because that other one already is.

Man as great as your post(s) were with all that info I'm surprised you didn't read my entire posts (or it seems). Especially after it appears your bashing me for not doing research when I've read the node deleveeling in both of the places you mentioned but the wiki was just quicker/easier for me to find for the purpose of replying above.

For example I even suggested the mayor/siege leader 1v1 for a buff/debuff in OP lol.
"3) Mayor and Siege leader could engage in single combat - losing side receives a -buff (loss of moral) and winning side receives a +buff."

I understand that the neighboring nodes could benefit from a siege on one of the cluster nodes - however I'm not sure that it's simple as saying there shouldn't be any recourse for the defenders and mayor to try and fix the issue themselves or mitigate boredom/loss in some way - however if you read further I also said that the attackers should be given the option to deny this so they can destroy the node if that is their goal/desire regardless of what the mayor chooses. I think that my suggestion would be a last ditch diplomatic option. I also suggested that there should be substantial penalties to the mayor directly for being allowed to surrender.

Based on this AoC siege video preview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGbqQ1QpD3U
The siege/destruction looks identical to Shadowbane (SB) at the 1:29 mark the video appears to highlight a spire type object that I would almost guarantee is the structure that declares the siege. (here is a video from shadowbane siege:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRgi_RQvJ9E (see 2:32 it shows the "Bane" which was the same structure in SB) - the trebuchet in both videos look identical as well.

Again just from personal experience of hundreds of sieges it's my utmost opinion that if the game offered some expedited win/defeat scenarios it will improve the game play. Maybe there is no middle ground(s) for node destruction, but since item, storage loot appears to still be present - maybe that is the Mayor's last mercy to his citizens that if a surrender is accepted the node fully destructs but the loot percentage(s) drop further so less items/loot can be taken. Again paring this defeat with penalties and specific event scenarios so that it can become an option should the defending side ween/give up/log off.

For example if the defending side has no option but to lose their city once certain requisites have been met through specific NPC/building destruction I guarantee *quote this for A2-B2 tests) that you'll see the defenders bail in frustration/defeat before the final blow is dealt in more than 90% of the cases. If defeat becomes inevitable at an early stage of the siege all that is left is attacking side destroying buildings and killing NPCs - which I'm sure by design is not the intent of IS for how a siege plays out because who can't imagine that is going to be utterly boring.

To further illustrate my point here in SB the cities were owned and built by guilds, this cost them money, time, effort and in some cases a lot of diplomatic work. I find it surprising that in the case of Shadowbane where guilds and players lost EVERYTHING they built, the place they called home for potentially months and years and if they lost they got NONE of it back. That in a game that is going to offer large % of their items/storage back in addition to the blue prints(cost of their real estate) that these players are going to be more inclined to defend a city to the very last minute when they could potentially move to a neighboring node (or even across the map) and repeat their existence in the game at a minimal in comparison example of time/effort.

loghan · August 2020

I think you misunderstood my first paragraph, I am for that idea, not against it, the idea about how the two mayors could at the start of a siege do a 1v1 duel and winner gets a morale buff for their side, but at the same time the duel has to be accepted by both side and is purely voluntary. And the giant wall of text of mine was not meant as a bashing, just the node/siege stuff has so many elements to it that I just had alot of dry info to splurt out and so you got a text book of words thrown your way.

The idea though that I am still not on board with, though I'm taking all of what you have said into consideration but i'm still not a fan of a mechanic that allows the avoidance of complete node construction. But I'm only stuck on sticking with Ashes' current design idea because it is such a complex system that I can't yet say if I understand it better than them yet and probably wont until 6 months into the game and have seen Metros come and go. 100% i'm with you though, if months into the game no metropolis can last more than a month and so everyone is pissed because we all want to experience the top tier content but can't, then to slow down that rate of metropolis destruction, your idea could be exactly what they'd want to go with.

But like you i'm a Shadowbane refugee looking for a new node destruction sort of game. Good to see a video of SB again, gave me some chills remember my channeler and being on both sides of those sieges. I also used to love being able to insta summon people, I always kept an eye on guild chat, and the moment a random guildie asked for a summons because they were about to die, I'd summon them to me. It was extra funny when I would be out in the middle of no where far from any city, but they'd still say thanks, a long walk was better than dying and being fully looted of all their farmed mats.

Tyrantor · August 2020

So being that you have shadowbane experience do you not recall how the defenders usually broke and gaav up in nearly every siege? Do you not recall how boring it was to burn buildings, walls etc so you could build more trebuchet to destroy their ToL? The game was designed around all or nothing in sieges and even still entire guilds and alliances would simply give up. AoC isn't even an All or Nothing in the sense that the citizens lose that much (or at least from what I can tell it appears they lose less in the form of time and money). I'm not sure why this would hold their interest to defend longer if higher stakes didn't.

Also please don't misinterpret this, i'm not suggesting people won't defend the cities. I'm simply suggesting that once the probability of defeat is fairly obvious, i'm expecting the giving up aspect from defending citizens to set in as was the case in SB.

loghan · August 2020

God the city destruction in shadowbane was boring, yeah I remember the hours it took to slowly work through the city and burn it all down, and like you say, the defending alliance had hours prior logged out for good and given up.

But how many hours do you recall those being, my memory is a bit fuzzy from paint fumes, a major city took like 6 hours to destroy right?

In Ashes the siege timer is 90 minutes (and they've said they may even change that, it could get shorter). At this point in time I don't think the siege game play will be so boring that people give up before 90 minutes. Because during the sieges there are multiple side objectives, so even if you lose one, there's others to fall back to and keep entertained defending.

Last point I can think of atm is that there are PvP leader boards on the server , aka PvP Seasons where each month winners will be awarded loot. Any pvp you do helps you in your pvp standing, as well as your guild's pvp standing. So even if your node is losing, you will want to stick around to get kills for yourself and your guild at least. Each kill, and each destruction of a siege objective gives your guild points and your guild uses those points to someday get a guild hall or guild upgrades like the upgrade to boost guild size or increase stats for your members.

A lengthy reddit discussion on this topic as well if you're interested, here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/icrjyc/how_to_reward_conflict_node_system/

Tyrantor · August 2020

Well it's true some of the sieges took hours and hours but a lot of the sieges I remember ended after about an two max (from active to destruction). I mean this time frame was more accurately to late game (multiple years after release) the initial release sieges took for ever because none of our characters were leveled/geared/built specifically for sieges. Furthermore some of the sieges went longer than this because the attacking side would basically just leave a bunch of bots/afks in town manning the trebs to knock stuff down with a few scouts patrolling to make sure defenders didn't try to take it back.

Keep in mind SB also offered substantial fast travel in a game like AoC where this is going to be somewhat hindered and limited, even though the duration of the active siege may only be 90-120 minutes the prep time to get there could very well add substantial time commitments to this.

While SB didn't have specific objectives like "Kill this building to advance the siege" there were stages of the siege that regardless of actual objectives were generally required. I'm not sure a ladder board or other pvp reward system is enough going to keep defenders from bailing once shit hits the fan. I mean think back to SB if a hand full of guys stuck it out to the end they were generally just slaughtered over and over.

Anyway even if we're only talking about saving 30+/- minutes of attackers having to manually burn things down with ZERO challenged pvp it would be nice to come up with a process to allow this.. maybe it's too early to have this discussion because we need to see how it goes but it should be on their radar in case the scenario repeats.

Everything about the sieges in SB were amazing until.... the pvp stopped and we were just attacking buildings lol. (minus the sb.exe errors of course).

Mayor & Siege Leader Diplomatic & Concept ideas

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