An issue with Castle Sieges

A recent node discussion touched on node sieges which in turn reminded me of the current castle siege design.

Castle sieges are supposed to have a limited amount of participants. This design seems faulty to me because it would lead to absolute domination by the huge guilds. Any guild that has over 500 people (split into several sub-guilds), or alternatively can afford to hire enough mercs, can just register half of their forces to the attacking side and prevent anyone else from even attempting to siege the defenders.

And even if Intrepid manage to support 500x500 sieges, the defending guild can hire mercs to fill up the limited attacker slots. Castle taxes can be used freely by the defending guild, so anyone who holds a castle will have a ton of money and would only benefit from buying mercs.

The main question of this thread is whether you think something should be done to prevent that. We don't know if Intrepid have addressed this issue already (if they even see it as one), but I think some preliminary discussion could help them decide one way or the other, before releasing more info on the topic.

I am personally against allowing this kind of "exploit", but don't see a good enough solution, outside of making the slots unlimited. If you agree that something has to be done about this, any ideas would be appreciated.

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Electronn

Interesting point.

NiKr wrote: »

Any guild that has over 500 people

While I realize it doesn't negate your point, I believe guild size will be limited. Currently 300 is the limit unless something has changed, which is possible considering how long it has been since Steven commented on it:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Guild_size

Electronn

Here is an interesting quote from the link I posted above, which may mitigate the concern, to some degree:

"It's important to note that the 300 is the maximum cap that is attained by leveling the guild and selecting the path of size as opposed to the path of guild skills. So the larger you choose to allow for members to join your guild, increasing that member cap, the less focused and honed the available skill options will be from a guild level up perspective for guild members. So the way that kind of works is it plays as a balance/counterbalance to larger guilds versus smaller more honed and focused guilds. It kind of gives them an equitable edge of participation.[1]" – Steven Sharif

Ludullu

But that is exactly my point though

The 500-member guild would just have two 250-member guilds, one that holds the castle and the other that always attacks it.

Hell, I'd assume they'll just have 40-men guilds to fully benefit from the guild perks. But that in no way prevents them from being the ones to fully fill out the attacker list on the siege and prevent any proper guild from taking the castle away from them.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

But that is exactly my point though The 500-member guild would just have two 250-member guilds, one that holds the castle and the other that always attacks it.

Hell, I'd assume they'll just have 40-men guilds to fully benefit from the guild perks. But that in no way prevents them from being the ones to fully fill out the attacker list on the siege and prevent any proper guild from taking the castle away from them.

At this point you wouldn't even have to 'throw the fight' if the two guilds were organized.

They'd just have 'Siege Combat Practice' every so often.

Mag7spy

If they are spending all their money to prevent people from attacking to attack themselves i guess its a strat at the end of the day. 100% would be cheese but there would be ways to counter it, if you know its a common thing but giving everyone a chance to dec with a scroll and a random guild being selected as a lead. I'd say it should have 24 hours to decide who the final person that declare is, so everyone has a fair chance and warning.

Making it so you are wasting your time and mats to attempt to dec yourself.

bloodprophet

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_sieges

A guild that captures a castle will own that castle for a month before it is sieged again.[14][15]

Castle sieges are every month whether the guild wants it or not.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

At this point you wouldn't even have to 'throw the fight' if the two guilds were organized.

They'd just have 'Siege Combat Practice' every so often.

Yeah, they could just give each other the castle and share the income between the two (or more).

Mag7spy wrote: »

If they are spending all their money to prevent people from attacking to attack themselves i guess its a strat at the end of the day. 100% would be cheese but there would be ways to counter it, if you know its a common thing but giving everyone a chance to dec with a scroll and a random guild being selected as a lead. I'd say it should have 24 hours to decide who the final person that declare is, so everyone has a fair chance and warning.

Making it so you are wasting your time and mats to attempt to dec yourself.

But then you are either punishing all the guilds who'd do the same or you are not punishing the defending guild, if you give back the money if the registered guild wasn't chosen.

And as for spending money on the siege. The castle will supposedly gather taxes from 1/5 of the server. That's a shitload of cash. There's obviously the possibility that some guilds might try and attack the tax caravans, but a 500+ guild would probably have enough people to defend their stuff well enough.

Also, if you go down the rng way of picking attackers, you not only defeat the whole point of "band together to topple the strong" design (that mainly comes from the small guild perks vs huge perkless guilds), but it would also just be abused in another way. The huge guild would just register a ton of smaller guilds to raise their chances of successfully getting in. Hell, if they split all of their guild into 40-mens then they will already have several spots taken up. A few merc guilds on top of that and you have yourself super high chances to be the only ones who attack.

Also also, the foe attackers wouldn't need to prepare any resources for the siege, so it'd be way cheaper for them. In theory, even the defenders wouldn't have to prepare anything, though that would obviously depend on how the issue in the OP gets addressed.

Ludullu

bloodprophet wrote: »

Castle sieges are every month whether the guild wants it or not.

Don't quite see how that addresses the issue presented in the OP?

Noaani

My thoughts on this are that if a guild has enough people under their thumb well enough, then they should be able to hold on to that castle.àm

Every game I have ever played that has had two guilds functioning as one has eventually split though, so that is what I would expect to see I Ashes as well.

Other than the obvious not being able to join the attacking side on a siege on your own guild castle (or that of an ally), I dont see a need for anything to be done.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

My thoughts on this are that if a guild has enough people under their thumb well enough, then they should be able to hold on to that castle.àm

Every game I have ever played that has had two guilds functioning as one has eventually split though, so that is what I would expect to see I Ashes as well.

Other than the obvious not being able to join the attacking side on a siege on your own guild castle (or that of an ally), I dont see a need for anything to be done.

I should've been clearer in my original post. The "split into several sub-guilds" was what I was talking about.

Thx for the opinion.

bloodprophet

NiKr wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Castle sieges are every month whether the guild wants it or not.

Don't quite see how that addresses the issue presented in the OP?

It don't.
But it does address the attackers cost. A side from siege equipment , time and gear repair.

As to your main point. I think this is a community concern and not an Intrepid concern. I agree I don't see any way to prevent this with out having severe unintended consequences.

Ludullu

bloodprophet wrote: »

It don't.
But it does address the attackers cost. A side from siege equipment , time and gear repair.

But if the issue remains unaddressed then the attackers lose literally nothing. They would only pay the registration cost. And unless that cost is equal to what a castle gets in 30 days through taxes - the defending guild stays profitable.

But if the registration cost is that damn high, I dunno how many people would even want to siege a castle.

Mag7spy

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

At this point you wouldn't even have to 'throw the fight' if the two guilds were organized.

They'd just have 'Siege Combat Practice' every so often.

Yeah, they could just give each other the castle and share the income between the two (or more).

Mag7spy wrote: »

If they are spending all their money to prevent people from attacking to attack themselves i guess its a strat at the end of the day. 100% would be cheese but there would be ways to counter it, if you know its a common thing but giving everyone a chance to dec with a scroll and a random guild being selected as a lead. I'd say it should have 24 hours to decide who the final person that declare is, so everyone has a fair chance and warning.

Making it so you are wasting your time and mats to attempt to dec yourself.

But then you are either punishing all the guilds who'd do the same or you are not punishing the defending guild, if you give back the money if the registered guild wasn't chosen.

And as for spending money on the siege. The castle will supposedly gather taxes from 1/5 of the server. That's a shitload of cash. There's obviously the possibility that some guilds might try and attack the tax caravans, but a 500+ guild would probably have enough people to defend their stuff well enough.

Also, if you go down the rng way of picking attackers, you not only defeat the whole point of "band together to topple the strong" design (that mainly comes from the small guild perks vs huge perkless guilds), but it would also just be abused in another way. The huge guild would just register a ton of smaller guilds to raise their chances of successfully getting in. Hell, if they split all of their guild into 40-mens then they will already have several spots taken up. A few merc guilds on top of that and you have yourself super high chances to be the only ones who attack.

Also also, the foe attackers wouldn't need to prepare any resources for the siege, so it'd be way cheaper for them. In theory, even the defenders wouldn't have to prepare anything, though that would obviously depend on how the issue in the OP gets addressed.

I don't see you losing anything to band together, it simple means banding together with more scrolls ensures there is a higher chance they can't dec themselves. Also it's not possible for a bunch of smaller guilds to just dec since it has been mentioned is going to be a considerable resource sink based on the size of the node. Bunch of small guilds aren't just going to dec unless they have infinite resources given to them to do the dec (therefore being more of an economy thing).

Dolyem

This is going to sound so damn convoluted and extra but... what if the reputation system carried over to interacting with players and their affiliated guilds? So if a side guild is constantly interacting in positive ways with another guild through player interaction, they're seen as "allies" and unable to attack during a siege.
Or at the very least it'd allow for Intrepid to see the interaction between the guilds if they do throw the attack, could make it a sort of "evidence" for punishment from intrepid.

Another option is to put a cooldown on guild alliances, so if a guild leaves and alliance, they can't join a siege against that alliance for a set amount of time. This would allow for another form of tracking if they continue to leave and join the alliance for sieges. Only downside would be on the intrigue side, because backstabbing alliances could be fun politics. Maybe make the alliance have the cooldown and make a substantial loss for not killing the enemies during that period, forcing those guilds to fight so they don't lose resources or xp or whatever.

A fun punishment instead of a ban could be to make the guilds corrupted and locked with the gear they have equipped. Let the server tear them apart and made an example of.

Ludullu

Mag7spy wrote: »

I don't see you losing anything to band together, it simple means banding together with more scrolls ensures there is a higher chance they can't dec themselves. Also it's not possible for a bunch of smaller guilds to just dec since it has been mentioned is going to be a considerable resource sink based on the size of the node. Bunch of small guilds aren't just going to dec unless they have infinite resources given to them to do the dec (therefore being more of an economy thing).

I looked into it a bit more and it's even direr than I thought

any and all guilds will have to do quests and then cast the scroll (for 5 uninterrupted minutes). So the defending huge guild can literally just let only their own dudes cast the scroll, while killing anyone else.

StevenSharif wrote: »

On the matter of the declaration flag/scroll for castle sieges.
Guild registration opens for the siege.

Once a guild registers for the siege a scroll creation quest is initiated that guild members may participate in, and it becomes possible to lay the declaration scroll down as soon as the quest is completed. Multiple guilds may register to attack and the first to complete the scroll and lay down the declaration may begin to have their members register to attack (there will be a cap) The siege scroll deployment is a 5 min cast that alerts the region at the cast initiation and names the caster that must be the guild leader.

Alternatively, if the wasn't a limit on the attackers, all those smaller guilds could just register at weird times and then help each other win the siege.

Hell, in L2 some guilds registered for the siege at the very last second possible, just to keep their involvement a secret. And when this practice became widespread, the defending guilds would put PKing parties (or just killing ones for the warring guilds) around the registering npc, so that those sneaky guilds couldn't register at the end.

The sneakiness was mainly done so that the defenders didn't know how many guilds would attempt the attack and there'd be a higher chance to successfully attack. With the current system it would be the direct opposite. The defending guild would just be ready to get the scroll quest at the first possible second and would be super cooperated, so that they're the ones to be the first to fill out the slots. And even if they're a bit late - they'll just kill any scroll-casters.

Ludullu

Dolyem wrote: »

This is going to sound so damn convoluted and extra but... what if the reputation system carried over to interacting with players and their affiliated guilds? So if a side guild is constantly interacting in positive ways with another guild through player interaction, they're seen as "allies" and unable to attack during a siege.
Or at the very least it'd allow for Intrepid to see the interaction between the guilds if they do throw the attack, could make it a sort of "evidence" for punishment from intrepid.

All of this is sidestepped by getting merc guilds or by just good coordination on the huge guild's part. And unless you literally track every single p2p trade interaction, every single chat interaction, every single PM and every single instance of some 2 groups of people being present in the same general location - ya ain't preventing shit.

Dolyem wrote: »

Another option is to put a cooldown on guild alliances, so if a guild leaves and alliance, they can't join a siege against that alliance for a set amount of time. This would allow for another form of tracking if they continue to leave and join the alliance for sieges. Only downside would be on the intrigue side, because backstabbing alliances could be fun politics. Maybe make the alliance have the cooldown and make a substantial loss for not killing the enemies during that period, forcing those guilds to fight so they don't lose resources or xp or whatever.

Unless guild alliances give some immense benefit to the allies, this wouldn't work. And if it does give that benefit, I'd assume there'd be bigger balancing issues than just castle stuff. Though maybe not.

Dolyem wrote: »

A fun punishment instead of a ban could be to make the guilds corrupted and locked with the gear they have equipped. Let the server tear them apart and made an example of.

You're a psycho

Noaani

I guess I am just not seeing the issue here.

There are hoops to jump through to siege a castle.

If a guild has another guild that isnt an official ally, yet is friendly enough to be trusted, and is willing to jump through all of those hoops, then yeah, that should be a le to block a siege.

The thing is, I just dont see it happening. If you are that close to another guild, you will likely want to join an alliance with them.

I just don't see the situation where a guild that large has another guild that large that is also close and that trusted, yet not an ally.

A guild that does have that in place probably wouldnt be beaten in a siege anyway, so if they want to invest the time in to preventing them happening, more power to them imo. People wanting to take over a castle can siege one of the other castles.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

I guess I am just not seeing the issue here.

There are hoops to jump through to siege a castle.

If a guild has another guild that isnt an official ally, yet is friendly enough to be trusted, and is willing to jump through all of those hoops, then yeah, that should be a le to block a siege.

The thing is, I just dont see it happening. If you are that close to another guild, you will likely want to join an alliance with them.

I just don't see the situation where a guild that large has another guild that large that is also close and that trusted, yet not an ally.

A guild that does have that in place probably wouldnt be beaten in a siege anyway, so if they want to invest the time in to preventing them happening, more power to them imo. People wanting to take over a castle can siege one of the other castles.

It doesn't have to be 2 different guilds. Could just be subguilds of the same one. And I've had a ton of cases where our ally list in L2 was full, but we had several more allies during sieges. The system-based allyship is not necessary to be allies in the game.

Also, considering the potential profits from the castle, I'd assume most guild would be completely fine with doing this thing once a month for some nice stacks of cash. Don't even have to be allies with the defenders.

Arya_Yeshe

@NiKr you have to understand that people in Intrepid are OK, they are not gaming Einsteins so you gotta bring more stuff like this so people can help their exausted brains

But since you are extremely blessed in life and lucky as f*** because I am around and I have big brains, then I will give you one idea for a scenario having a node A 50 x 250 B:

In the siege event force a spawn/ress time for node B that is 5x bigger than Team A spawn/ress time

This will not fix the issue of zergging, but this instantly fixes even fights if Team B is comming in waves

Do you wanna know what is worse than that? The City Hall has barely any intel on it's citizens!!!!!
The mayor has no clue how many of citizens from node A actually belongs to guilds from node B, so in siege day node A may have 20 out of 50 who actually belongs to the main guild from node B

So, just like in other games, the defenders may actually have a large amount of moles and the mayor has no way to tell this, there is a city board where you can list all citizens in the node but you have to click citizen by citizen and write down on a paper besides you and do the accounting about how many citizens from which guild lives in his node. Having moles and spies is ok, but the mayor having zero intel about this and being completely clueless is not ok

LMAO
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/54645/guild-hall-needs-more-options#latest

Then we come to the topic Castle Sieges, that is guild vs guild right?
I would do the same spawn/ress cooldown thing

If the small guild has a castle, it's their problem if they don't have people!

I gave the idea about bounty hunters being able to be hired for sieges in the topic "Bounty Hunter: Mercenary"

Ludullu

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

NiKr
you have to understand that people in Intrepid are OK, they are not gaming Einsteins

But since you are extremely blessed in life and lucky as f*** because I am around and I have big brains, then I will give you one idea for a scenario having a node A 50 x 250 B:

In the siege event force a spawn/ress time for node B that is 5x bigger than Team A spawn/ress time

This will not fix the issue of zergging, but this instantly fixes even fights if Team B is comming in waves

Do you wanna know what is worse than that? The City Hall has barely any intel on it's citizens!!!!!
The mayor has no clue how many of citizens from node A actually belongs to guilds from node B, so in siege day node A may have 20 out of 50 who actually belongs to the main guild from node B

So, just like in other games, the defenders may actually have a large amount of moles and the mayor has no way to tell this, there is a city board where you can list all citizens in the node but you have to click citizen by citizen and write down on a paper besides you and do the accounting about how many citizens from which guild lives in his node. Having moles and spies is ok, but the mayor having zero intel about this and being completely clueless is not ok

LMAO
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/54645/guild-hall-needs-more-options#latest

A nonsensical off-topic response that in no way relates to this entire thread. Got it. Thank you.

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