Sieges end at Seal cast

So... I hate this.

This directly supports the kind of collusion I was worried about when I made my previous posts about sieges.

Even if the gates can't be openned during the siege (sure hope they can't be), the defending guild will step outside of the castle > let their allies (usually alt guild) through, so they can attack the gates > defend that gate against any other enemy > the ally goes in, casts the seal and the castle changes hands w/o changing hands or even a good siege.

All of that is shit imo.

So, what's all yall's opinion on this? Are you ok with this kind of design? Do you think it'll get changed? If you want it to change, what would be your preference?

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Otr

This is how I imagined it to be, that the event ends.
I had a suggestion in that thread, about the game measuring how much effort is being put into defending or attacking the caravans.
On attacking side should join only those who previous 3 weeks attacked caravans and should be selected based on their success rate.

Ludullu

Otr wrote: »

On attacking side should join only those who previous 3 weeks attacked caravans and should be selected based on their success rate.

Yeah, if they stick with the current design, then this would be the next best thing tbh. Require proper involvement throughout the prep month. Maybe that is already the case and they simply haven't said so, but considering they haven't even designed augments - I highly doubt they've thought the sieges through to that detailed extent.

Otr

We knew that there is some form of progression for those who attack or defend caravans.
Dygz used to remind us when people asked what the risk on attacker side is.
That system can be used also for castle caravans.

Ludullu

Otr wrote: »

We knew that there is some form of progression for those who attack or defend caravans.
Dygz used to remind us when people asked what the risk on attacker side is.
That system can be used also for castle caravans.

Yeah, there's a few potential expansions on the highwaymen system. Maybe they're already implemented, but we just don't know.

Laetitian

(Sidenote: I've copied your phrasing of the "sealing" process that I seem to trace to the wikia article which talks about "sealing ownership of the castle," but I haven't seen Steven use the word. He talks of a "channel victory point" here. Are we sure a "seal" exists?)

Are you ok with this kind of design? Do you think it'll get changed?

Even if Steven wants there to be intrigue and some amount of competition on the attacking side, I don't think he would want the battle itself compromised the way you predict it.
I don't think anyone would want castle sieges to be weeks of preparation leading to a 15-minute farce of a battle, culminating in a nominal change of command, pre-arranged by the defenders.

The best devil's advocate defence for the current system I could come up with would be about the defenders abandoning their castle to protect their undercover attackers. That might weaken the siege defence as a whole, as long as the attackers manage to capitalise on it quickly and decisively. But the problem is that it should still be trivial to hold back the real attackers just enough to give the ones engaging in treason the time to finish the claim first, even if it means that the defence itself won't hold back the other opponents very effectively. All you need to do is interrupt the non-undercover channels once...

If you want it to change, what would be your preference?

1) I personally wouldn't mind just letting all the attackers vote.

You could vote who the castle should go to after a successful siege, but there would be tons of downsides to this order of doing things. (Treasonous registered attackers would still severely obstruct the attacker side before the siege could be won. It would also prevent the intended potential for intrigue.)

I personally like the method of voting during the registration stage to veto unpopular registered guilds by a simple majority once the registrations are filled. This voting process is the most direct solution. It mirrors the advantage that the defenders already have in the current system, while the attackers currently don't have any way of protecting themselves against infiltration from the other side.
(Depending on whether all participant guilds need to complete the siege scroll quests, the real attackers could theoretically "just" completely dominate those quests to keep out traitors, but that wouldn't sufficiently eliminate the threat of undercover agents; it would only take one small guild to seal the siege for the megaguild.)
So without such a decently direct solution, it will always remain an underlying imbalance.

With all that said, voting probably just isn't the desired tool for this part of the game.

So, if voting (even just by guild leaders) is not it, I see these potential options:

2) Make numbers count in other ways. Require a minimum amount of attackers inside the inner keep or on major strategic locations inside the castle, before the siege can be concluded with the sealing process. That way, the defenders can't just allow their infiltration by undercover agents, because they won't be able to channel the seal, if they constitute less than, say, 20% of the attacking siege army.

As an even more simple solution, allow each attacker to support one preferred guild master's sealing channel in order to speed up their channel by 10 seconds (adjust the total channel duration accordingly.) - But this approach on its own still makes undercover attackers effective, so the first option seems far preferable. However, this version of option 2 could also be combined with option 3.

3) Make it possible for attackers to assassinate specifically guild leaders (the only players who are allowed to seal ownership) they don't approve of on their own side.

If there are one or two guilds leaders affiliated with the defenders in the siege, the defenders might be able to stop the attackers from successfully sieging the castle themselves, but they'd be less likely to prevent you from targeting and assassinating the undercover fellow attacking guild leaders from trying to enter the castle.
Admittedly, the problem with this solution is that it still makes it very difficult for the attackers to win the siege, because their focus will be divided between assassinating the treasonous guild leaders, and attacking the castle themselves.
But it could be argued that the defending guild is also giving up a lot of their defender's advantage by trying to protect their allies from outside the castle walls.

By only allowing this toggled friendly-fire only against guild leaders, you lower the risk of the whole thing becoming an unproductive in-fighting blood bath in regular castle sieges (Regular as in: Not like the nominal megaguild power transition described in the OP.)

In the event that the attackers successfully hold the inner keep for like an hour, but still keep kicking out all their leaders, because they can't agree on a deserving winner, call the siege successful by virtue of the attackers controlling the inner keep, and escalate the ownership redistribution some other way. Most obvious option would be just to unlock the ownership sealing for regular players without changing friendly fire rules. At that point, the guild with the most players in the keep could complete the sealing channel the fastest.

But at the baseline of this solution is the encouragement for the attackers to engage in some amount of minimal diplomacy, if they don't want to risk getting kicked out while they're engaging in in-fighting.

4) Siege preparation involvement, as proposed in this thread.

Aszkalon

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

So, what's all yall's opinion on this? Are you ok with this kind of design?

I hope i don't sound more stupid than necessary when i suggest : should Players be able to decide such a Mechanic via a Vote ?

Like : if a Castle can "only" change Hands/Owners by being conquered ? Or with being handed over to Allies ?

And, ummm, why should it be possible to "change" Owners during a Siege ? If i haven't misunderstood. Is that a Chance and Opportunity to go around the Siege Mechanic ? Because it kinda sounds this way, or i just gloriously managed to misunderstand once again.

ReLamas

I can understand your concerns about the potential for collusion and exploitation during castle sieges in Ashes of Creation. The idea of defending guilds letting allied or alt guilds through to take the castle without a real fight could undermine the spirit of competitive play and fair sieges.

One way to address this issue might be to implement stricter mechanics around gate access and control points during sieges. For example, preventing gates from being opened by defenders once the siege begins, or requiring all players to follow the same process to breach gates, could help mitigate these concerns. Additionally, having more complex and randomized objectives for capturing a castle, rather than a straightforward "cast the seal" mechanic, might prevent such easy manipulation.

In terms of solutions, some players might suggest penalties for obvious collusion or systems that detect and discourage such behavior. For instance, adding systems to track and report suspicious activities during sieges could be a deterrent.

Ultimately, it's crucial for Intrepid Studios to consider these scenarios and implement systems that promote fair play and meaningful competition. I'm interested to hear more thoughts from others on how best to ensure a fair and engaging siege experience.

Laetitian

ReLamas wrote:

during castle sieges in Ashes of Creation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acDouRolU-U

Azherae

Well, just in case...

Azherae wrote: »

"If Sieges do not end when the first successful person completes the channeling and takes control of the castle, I see no reason to care about limited member exploits or collusion. I do not like this model, but I stop seeing the merit in the thread's original suggestion if it is the chosen model."

You know the rest.

Ludullu

Laetitian wrote: »

(Sidenote: I've copied your phrasing of the "sealing" process that I seem to trace to the wikia article which talks about "sealing ownership of the castle," but I haven't seen Steven use the word. He talks of a "channel victory point". Are we sure a "seal" exists?)

Yeah, I shoulda been clearer with that. That "seal ownership" made my brain immediately relate the mechanic to L2's name for this "Cast". Which was "Seal of Ruler". Exact same principal, so my mind just went directly to calling it "casting a seal"

Also, calling it a "cast" just kinda feels weird, and Steven hasn't given a proper name for it yet, from what I've seen.

As for suggestions, I do like the second one. Require more people from the attacking side to do things. Maybe even at the same time in different parts of the castle. Would at least make it harder for a small group of defender allies to achieve this. And if they can get a huge group into the siege, then that's already a whole different problem.

Aszkalon wrote: »

And, ummm, why should it be possible to "change" Owners during a Siege ? If i haven't misunderstood. Is that a Chance and Opportunity to go around the Siege Mechanic ? Because it kinda sounds this way, or i just gloriously managed to misunderstand once again.

The point of the siege is to change its owner. Guilds are fighting for the rights to rule the kingdom.

While voting could potentially work, I doubt that GLs would agree to that kind of mechanic for castle ownership decisions.

ReLamas wrote: »

Additionally, having more complex and randomized objectives for capturing a castle, rather than a straightforward "cast the seal" mechanic, might prevent such easy manipulation.

Yes.

ReLamas wrote: »

In terms of solutions, some players might suggest penalties for obvious collusion or systems that detect and discourage such behavior. For instance, adding systems to track and report suspicious activities during sieges could be a deterrent.

I'm not sure I'd want Intrepid's GMs to be the deciding factor on who's doing what. This usually leads to GM colluding and favorable treatments. One of the L2 official servers was infamous for "GMs helping the strongest guild on the server" Ruined the game's image quite a bit.

Blaspherian

Are we really worried about this? Seems like the kind of thing that happens in dead or low pop games where there's little to no competition. With the scope of what Ashes aspires to be and the fact there's only 5 castle regions, I imagine castle ownership will become fiercely competitive. I don't see big, competitive guilds just letting this kind of stuff happen. Why do you think guilds would want to pass castle ownership so freely to allies or alt guilds? Cause it sounds like guilds are incentivized to maintain ownership.

AFAIK guilds that are allies proper through the guild alliance system cannot register as attackers, only defenders. Also, you could spin your concern the opposite way. If there's a large guild alliance that wants to take a castle, they could send X# of members to go become citizens of the that castle's neighboring nodes (which automatically get registered as defenders of the castle) and have those members lay down arms and throw the siege.

To me, both scenarios are cheesy, but at some point they both fall under the design intent for there to be politics and player friction. Considering that design intent, who is to draw the line of what is acceptable and what is taboo?

I don't think it's a big concern. It seems like the kind of thing that might happen a couple times year and at that point it's kinda...who cares? Guilds that pull that kind of crap will make a reputation for themselves, the server will appreciate the drama, life will go on. Lastly, while castle sieges look and sound awesome, everything I've seen so far leads me to believe that Node Wars/Siege and Guild Wars will be our bread and butter when it comes to large scale PvP. I'm thinking that's where the most fun will be had. Let the Wal-Mart guilds play Game of Thrones.

Ludullu

Blaspherian wrote: »

I imagine castle ownership will become fiercely competitive. I don't see big, competitive guilds just letting this kind of stuff happen. Why do you think guilds would want to pass castle ownership so freely to allies or alt guilds? Cause it sounds like guilds are incentivized to maintain ownership.

Now think about this in this way. Do they want to always keep the castle in their ownership or do they want to risk losing it for an entire month? What's the more competitive choice there?

Unless castles double their benefit on their second month - it'll be better to reduce your risk to minimum and just let the castle change hands to a trusted guild.

Blaspherian wrote: »

they could send X# of members to go become citizens of the that castle's neighboring nodes (which automatically get registered as defenders of the castle) and have those members lay down arms and throw the siege.

The defending guild can choose defenders, so they have full control over who's on their side.

Blaspherian wrote: »

To me, both scenarios are cheesy, but at some point they both fall under the design intent for there to be politics and player friction. Considering that design intent, who is to draw the line of what is acceptable and what is taboo?

Politics and drama are great, but "siege is finished in 10 minutes" is shitty politics and even worse drama.

Blaspherian wrote: »

Guilds that pull that kind of crap will make a reputation for themselves, the server will appreciate the drama, life will go on.

Castles give big benefits, so reputation doesn't matter as much when you're loaded. Billionaires don't care about the opinion of the plebs. Same will be true with castle owners and the rest of the server.

And as much as we'd all prefer if the entire server could just shut off a castle guild from loot and trade and everything else - this won't happen. The non-castle guilds will still need money, and castle owners will have a ton of that.

Blaspherian wrote: »

Lastly, while castle sieges look and sound awesome, everything I've seen so far leads me to believe that Node Wars/Siege and Guild Wars will be our bread and butter when it comes to large scale PvP. I'm thinking that's where the most fun will be had. Let the Wal-Mart guilds play Game of Thrones.

Those are day-to-day pvp situations, while castle sieges are staples of "big stuff happening". When I was just starting to play L2, its sieges were huge spectacles that I enjoyed watching, let alone participating.

Hell, my favorite video from those days (and the main reason for my favorite class at the time) is from a siege

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1feB1I0ohQ

Laetitian

Blaspherian wrote:

Why do you think guilds would want to pass castle ownership so freely to allies or alt guilds? Cause it sounds like guilds are incentivized to maintain ownership.

1) "Allies" is a very broad term. In this case, what we really mean is "family." In a 300 player guild (To clarify: I don't think the game will encourage their clan size, but it won't prevent it either, as long as they are flexible with game systems), which half of the guild owns the castle doesn't have to be a question of "strong half or weak half?"
2) You're treating it as an either-or question. They don't have to commit to passing on ownership at the beginning of the siege. They can just instruct their troops to be ready to muster one final defence push against everyone except the undercover agent/guild leader if their defences falter, and that delay will be enough to nullify the entire siege effort for almost everyone on the attacking side.

How is that *not* a problem?

And what reason would there be *not* to make the system exploit-proof, especially against mega guilds where individual members are already playing the game on path-of-least-resistance mode? (Not the leadership, but that doesn't make the guild as a whole...interesting for the realm to interact with.)

Blaspherian wrote:

I don't see big, competitive guilds just letting this kind of stuff happen.

What are the guilds supposed to do in order to prevent it?

Blaspherian wrote:

I don't think it's a big concern. It seems like the kind of thing that might happen a couple times year and at that point it's kinda...who cares?

I personally won't care, but I will care if other players get discouraged by the game having exploits like that. I don't often bring the "I only debate it because I care about other players' opinions/motivation" argument often, but when it comes to unnecessary exploits, their frustration is too easily preventable to accept it. Nepotism/monopoly exploits kill the vibe, and they're just not necessary.

Blaspherian wrote:

Lastly, while castle sieges look and sound awesome, everything I've seen so far leads me to believe that Node Wars/Siege and Guild Wars will be our bread and butter when it comes to large scale PvP.

Node wars will be cool, but their objectives will be less profound than castles, so castle fights will be more prestigious, and even if you don't personally benefit from them, you might be supporting someone else you care about or who's giving you access to indirect castle benefits.
Node sieges will be cool, but there will be areas where you won't get to see them a lot, and generally they won't be a constant thing; they're meant for changing the landscape, remember.

More importantly, only castles have weekly guaranteed small-scale objectives to fight for consistently so far. Nodes only have contestation when there is conflict. Which yes, there will be a bunch of, but it'll still be less reliable and while some of the quiet phases will feel like natural recuperation phases, some areas will feel more like dead, even in the early years of the game. Castles would provide a reliable place of PvP contest.
That's not to say the other PvP will be insufficient, just that people will care about the big locations and not want to watch their contestation become a farce.

Blaspherian

Damn that video is old! Cool to see it. I agree that castle siege can be a spectacle and is intended to be the premier large scale pvp activity in Ashes. Was just saying that it seems more politically driven, and from a pvp enthusiast perspective, I'm more interested in Node siege/wars and guild wars. Definitely want to do it all.

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Now think about this in this way. Do they want to always keep the castle in their ownership or do they want to risk losing it for an entire month? What's the more competitive choice there?

Unless castles double their benefit on their second month - it'll be better to reduce your risk to minimum and just let the castle change hands to a trusted guild.

Hmm. I see your point, but I also feel like if they they're at risk of losing it, we're probably talking about a guild that wasn't/isn't strong enough to hold the castle anyway. In which case, even having a sister guild, alliance etc., passing ownership isn't gonna be an option(or easy to pull off at least). Bigger, stronger castle guilds can just bring bigger numbers to the attackers.

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

The defending guild can choose defenders, so they have full control over who's on their side.

Yes, I know castle owner can select the defending guilds who signup. I thought the nodes adjacent to castle nodes' citizens were automatically registered for castle siege defense. Looking back on the wiki it seems like that's only the case for Node Sieges...even though the reference is under castle siege info. oof. Looks like we can't infiltrate castles through adjacent citizenship.

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Politics and drama are great, but "siege is finished in 10 minutes" is shitty politics and even worse drama.

Agreed, it is lame. I just don't think it will be a common occurrence.

How to prevent it entirely though? Might be a couple ways. Could have all the attacking guilds select a pre-determined incumbent guild option (maybe part of the siege scroll or something) during the siege declaration period. If all of the attacking guilds weren't agreed on the incumbent option, then the siege becomes a free-for-all at the point of an attacking guild starting the victory channel.
Or, at the point an attacking guild starts channeling, a notice is given to all attacking guilds showing which guild is channeling and a prompt to maintain alliance or flag for hostility, again potentially setting the siege to a free-for-all.

I dunno. As is, it's kinda cool cause it gives smaller guilds the chance to snipe castles.

Who knows? Maybe we'll get to test in in A2

Noaani

All they need to do is give the attacking guild (who ever actually uses the scroll) the same freedom to accept or reject participating guilds that the defenders have. This would mean a defending guild would need to earn that siege scroll faster than any other guild in order to have a chance - but imo at that point they earned the month off.

I fully expect this to be something that happens with both siege types.

Ludullu

Blaspherian wrote: »

Hmm. I see your point, but I also feel like if they they're at risk of losing it, we're probably talking about a guild that wasn't/isn't strong enough to hold the castle anyway. In which case, even having a sister guild, alliance etc., passing ownership isn't gonna be an option(or easy to pull off at least). Bigger, stronger castle guilds can just bring bigger numbers to the attackers.

Any guild is at risk losing a castle, simply because the enemies might've gotten stronger since the last siege and can now fight on equal grounds with the castle defenders.

Also, the defending side would simply need to hold off the attackers for ~10min. That's doable even with just body blocking, let alone proper defensive actions.

Blaspherian wrote: »

Yes, I know castle owner can select the defending guilds who signup. I thought the nodes adjacent to castle nodes' citizens were automatically registered for castle siege defense. Looking back on the wiki it seems like that's only the case for Node Sieges...even though the reference is under castle siege info. oof. Looks like we can't infiltrate castles through adjacent citizenship.

There's gonna be a limit on siege participants, which will definitely be filled by trusted players. It'll either be done with allied guilds or with merc guilds. And the chances are, those mercs wouldn't want to betray the client, cause that would destroy their rep.

Blaspherian wrote: »

How to prevent it entirely though? Might be a couple ways. Could have all the attacking guilds select a pre-determined incumbent guild option (maybe part of the siege scroll or something) during the siege declaration period. If all of the attacking guilds weren't agreed on the incumbent option, then the siege becomes a free-for-all at the point of an attacking guild starting the victory channel.
Or, at the point an attacking guild starts channeling, a notice is given to all attacking guilds showing which guild is channeling and a prompt to maintain alliance or flag for hostility, again potentially setting the siege to a free-for-all.

Yeah, L2 had an "everyone on the attacking side can kill everyone" design period. I personally find it fun, but don't know how other players would react to that.

As for channeling changing the alliance state of the attacking side. While it would be an intersting mechanic, it wouldn't do anything good in the context of the presented issue. If anything, if all the attacking guilds suddenly became enemies to each other when one of them started channeling the cast - this would play directly into the scheme I'm worried about.

Defending side gets their small group of attackers into the castle, while killing anyone else at the entrance. And as soon as that small group starts the cast - any aoe of the attackers will have friendly fire, which will immediately decrease their chances of successfully breaching the outer walls.

But overall, these kinds of ideas for changes is exactly why I made this thread

Otr

Laetitian wrote: »

(Sidenote: I've copied your phrasing of the "sealing" process that I seem to trace to the wikia article which talks about "sealing ownership of the castle," but I haven't seen Steven use the word. He talks of a "channel victory point" here. Are we sure a "seal" exists?)

So now when the wiki is updated, it will have to point to the L2 wiki?
Obviously Steven was pulling info from his L2 database when he answered

This is how you break the wiki, with a forged query into the Q&A of the monthly stream.

Laetitian

Blaspherian wrote:

If all of the attacking guilds weren't agreed on the incumbent option, then the siege becomes a free-for-all at the point of an attacking guild starting the victory channel.

That's close enough start towards a decent conservative solution that still leaves room for intrigue without allowing exploits, but how do you see that resolving the issue? The undercover guild is obviously always going to vote for itself.

If there's any voting to resolve treasonous attackers from capturing the castle, it needs to respect the majority in some form. That's why my voting suggestion involved decisive majority "vetoes" rather than focusing on voting directly for a leader to take ownership of the capture.

I still like the approach best of requiring multiple castle sectors to be under attacker control before the victory point can be channelled. Still a decent chance for backstabbing, but vastly diminished risk of mega guild exploits.

Blaspherian

Laetitian wrote: »

That's close enough start towards a decent conservative solution that still leaves room for intrigue without allowing exploits, but how do you see that resolving the issue? The undercover guild is obviously always going to vote for itself.

Yes, they will always vote for themselves. Outting themselves. That would show a trend over time and help expose these shady alliances (if they weren't already known). It's not a solution, but would at least provide the 'real' attacking guilds a chance to stop it. And the thought of a 3+ sided war is fun to me. Anyway, I still don't really see the issue as a big problem. I was just spitballing some ideas for the OP.

Laetitian wrote: »

I still like the approach best of requiring multiple castle sectors to be under attacker control before the victory point can be channelled. Still a decent chance for backstabbing, but vastly diminished risk of mega guild exploits.

If this kind of mechanic isn't already in place, it absolutely should be.

Blaspherian

Noaani wrote: »

All they need to do is give the attacking guild (who ever actually uses the scroll) the same freedom to accept or reject participating guilds that the defenders have. This would mean a defending guild would need to earn that siege scroll faster than any other guild in order to have a chance - but imo at that point they earned the month off.

I fully expect this to be something that happens with both siege types.

I woke up this morning with this exact solution in mind. Thank you for saving me from typing.

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