Town Sieges

So I was watching a few of the older video's and I could see Lord British was rather passionate about what could be possible with regards to Town Sieges. It kind of got me thinking of what might be a fun system.

Now I'm sure Sieges aren't everyone's cup of tea and thus it might be best to have a few options available. Anyways, below is a bunch of my thoughts on the subject:

POT's could be set to SIEGE or not, PRT's and NPC towns are always set to SIEGE. During a SIEGE (2hr window) the Town is flagged to PVP. Any Town that has already been set to SIEGE has a 2hr cooldown before it can be switched back. This will prevent some exploiting. Also a Town that has had war declared upon it cannot turn the SIEGE off until after the end of the 2hr window. This will give POT owners a chance to participate if they wish and to turn it off if they are having an event they would like uninterrupted.

A Town siege may be started by no fewer than 5 people (it is a town after all) They can initiate the siege by right clicking the town from the Overland Map and selecting SIEGE. At this time, occupants within the POT are to be given a 10 minute warning of the incoming attack and can prepare themselves to defend or flee to safety. A message to residents of the POT that are currently online might also be broadcast so that they have time to go and defend.

There should be a Town Bounty where the taxes paid on the lots within will accumulate over time and can be won by the attacking force! Alternately, When selecting SIEGE mode, the Town Governor could be asked if they wish to put up an extra incentive bounty . This can be as much as they wish to pay and could be used to represent how much the town might actually be worth (irrespective of rent-free deeds). So someone who owns a City sized POT might want to put up a million gold bounty to tempt an invading team.

A Holdfast on the other hand might only have 10k to put up and might not be such a target to warring factions and random NPC encounters. Visiting factions may or may not be able to see how much gold is on offer or perhaps the town crier might have set sayings within siege value ranges (10k to 50k “The town is a bit quiet these days”, 500k to 1mil, “The town is busier than I've ever seen it”)

PRT's and NPC Towns could have a set amount of gold allocated based on how many lots are player owned at the time of the siege.

How to Win:

There would be two sides to the conflict as you might expect, Attackers and Defenders, and dependent on which side a player chose, they would be flagged accordingly for the duration of the Siege. People arriving at the POT/PRT/NPC Town from the Overland Map during a time of SIEGE could be given the option to join the Attackers or the Defenders when clicking to enter the Scene.

Each side could have a Lodestone which is placeable at the time of Setting a POT to Siege mode or in the case of a PRT or NPC town, in a static location. The lodestone could be a store bought item or alternately, it could be just a flag that is assigned to an in-game statue or a building.

Attackers must also have a Lodestone and they should have a choice of static locations in which to place it. These locations would depend on the template they are fighting in and one would be chosen during the 10 minute pre-engagement window. This will serve as the Attackers Forward base and if destroyed by the Defenders will give them victory. Attacker Lodestones could be purchased with in-game gold and must be of appropriate value for the size town they are attacking. The item would be one use only and this is the funding source for a defenders win.

Lodestones must be defended at all cost as the goal of either side would be to destroy the others. Lodestones would have a set number of hit-points based on the size of the town being attacked. Certain Siege weaponry could also be brought into play to help take a town down faster. Siege weapons could cause additional damage against the Lodestones as well as AOE damage to defenders/attackers.

On completion of a successful Siege, Chests could be randomly spawned around the town and have an even split of the bounty, so that all involved might have a chance at the spoils (only those flagged as Attackers may loot). Spoils are to include the Bounty + Weapons/Armor of the various guard levels that are defeated plus reagents and other generic vendor type loot.

If, however, the defenders win then random chests with comparable spoils would spawn around the Attackers Lodestone and be lootable by anyone who has been flagged as a Defender.

If the POT/PRT/NPC Town is defeated, it will have the Title Sacked added to the name (As seen on the O/L Map). They would remain un-attackable for a period of time which could be anywhere from 24-72hrs. Attackers would need to bear in mind that it would still take quite a lot of time before a sacked Town had it’s Bounty recouped and thus it would not be a profitable endeavor to keep attacking the same Town.

How to Defend:

Towns could have the ability to purchase or build defensive structures, hire NPC Guards and of course the players themselves. (There are Merc players in game who would love to be hired for this job) The guards and defensive structures could be hired/purchased from the Town Management Tab in the case of a POT. PRT’s and NPC Towns would be preassigned these defenses.

The hired guards could be of varying types (Swordsmen, Archers, Mages, Clerics) and their strength levels would be dependant upon cost at the time of purchase.

Hiring Guards Menu Example:

Strength Levels--------------Type--------------Cost per week --------------Numbers
Untrained-----------------Swordsman---------------$1,000----------------4/20
Novice---------------------Swordsman---------------$5,000----------------3/20
Competent----------------Swordsman---------------$10,000---------------3/20
Professional---------------Swordsman--------------$15,000----------------2/20
Veteran--------------------Swordsman--------------$20,000----------------0/20
Master---------------------Swordsman--------------$50,000----------------0/20

Total: $79,000 Total: 12/20 - Max 20


Siege Weaponry might also be purchased in the same way and various levels could be bought depending on how much a POT owner wished to spend per week. Some weeks they might not have a lot of Gold but have extra players around to help defend if need be!

Well those are a few of my ramblings on the types of things I'd like to see with Town Sieges. Like I mentioned earlier, it's probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I for one would love to be able to defend and attack other towns! During Medieval times, (our setting) this kind of activity was a regular occurrence!

 

Nicely thought out, with all the player towns in game there is quite a lot of scope for both pve and pvp sieges. I think the biggest limitation is the player base, and setting appropriate time windows for sieges. I have both extremely fond memories, and extremely tormented memories of the sigil system in UO which required the items to be held for 24 hours straight!

So right out of the gate, I wonder what is stopping people from laying siege to a town when everyone is in snooze land.

 

I forgot what game it was - tera or global agenda - where the challenging guild got to issue the challenge 24-72 hours in advance, but they had to offer multiple times in time slots so the guild being challenged had to pick a time. like might be 7pm central, 1 am central, 7 am central, 3pm central.

Kinda like the "you draw the line, I pick my side, or I draw the line, you pick your side" thing.

I know we won a battle against a zerg guild by being offered a 4am slot - so we all went a little sleep deprived to deliever a wooping to a zerg guild whom couldn't man their best players because they were all asleep - their plan backfired.

Fun times.

 

It's true you cannot be at your computer all the time and I think the option to turn Town Siege on and off could be considered. (Just not while you've just had a war declared) There would also be the different Guard levels that you could employ to watch over your town as well as the players who cohabit your town. We are after all, quite a mixed bunch, from many different countries and time zones.

 

Be cool if we could burn POTs to the ground and salt the earth

 

Been thinking more about this idea, and it could really be fun!! It would also add a new layer of design when owners of POTs are designing their layout as they would have to consider the defensive capabilities of the town as well!!

 

Why should POT owners be allowed to opt out of TOWN Sieges, if it appears on the world map its should play by the Rules, and if it has nested hidden instanced housing POT's a higher % chance of a siege. Nested Pot owners will need to defend their neighbours.
If I want to get at the extra Abundant valuable rare resources I have to play by the PvP rule's and become a PK ganking target of choice, or try to find a small amount in some other instance that is not Flagged to show were they are.

 

I have no idea.

 

Well you are in Dev+ maybe you could ask and let the other 60000+ backer's that are not POT owners know.

 

Well, just as there are PVE and PVP scenes, it seems only fitting that there be an option to participate or not. Some of the community want nothing to do with PVP but would still appreciate battling an NPC invasion. There just needs to be the right amount of incentive to participate and this could be the chance to earn some revenue for your town or at the very least, a chance to win the spoils from a successful Defense.

 

We're just as likely to hear from the developers here as we would be in Dev+. Dev+ is more about getting a look at things in development a bit early. It's not a chat session, unfortunately.

When we get to the point that town sieges are being developed and tested, this question will definitely come up (everywhere, not just Dev+).

 

@Wolftam
You do not get an Option to opt out of Sieges in an NPC town.

 

This is not about the Siege game mechanics. POT owner's have said in the Forum's that they have an option to not have sieges against their Towns so it's already been discussed. The OP post also states POTS can be set to no siege.

 

Wagram, I think the problem here is you are misunderstanding the OP's original idea and what he is talking about. The devs have spoken about a system where player housing areas may be attacked by 'insert random creatures' and lay siege to their town so that players will need to rally up and defend. This is not the system the OP is talking about, he is suggesting a separate PVP focused interaction between two groups of players.

I don't know why you are bringing up the issue of rare resources, but I can only assume it is because you are mis-understanding the point of this post.

 

I'd like to hear more from the devs. That seems really dumb to me if that's the case.

 

So this is how rumors start.

Guys, it is wise to consider who is posting things and in what context they are being posted before basing judgements and opinions off them. The OP doesn't know whether or not POTS can be set to 'no siege'. The siege system doesn't exist yet.

 

I'm only half paying attention because of that (the siege system hasn't been started yet).

 

You raise a good point Wagram, However, I'm pretty sure that NPC Towns will be invaded regardless of player input in order to follow certain story-line developments. At this time, players have no control over the placement of lots or NPC buildings within NPC Towns. For this reason, the system for an NPC Town would need to be static and probably exempt from direct PVP attacks(Though I still hold out hope). PRT's are another story, and will be player owned, though cost prohibitive, most probably requiring a guild to pay for.

Please note, I am only making suggestions at this time of how I believe Town Sieges might work. None of my thoughts represent the ideas that the Dev's may hold for this functionality moving forward.

In fact, this occurred to me after I watched some of the really old Dev hangout videos, and Richard was quite passionate about Town sieges and what might happen. There has not been a lot spoken of it in a long while and I expect this is because they are trying to release as soon as possible.

Now, I am of the belief that POT's should have more hooks to get players visiting them and I don't just say this because I own one. Rather, for the fact that they are apart of the game now and as such, represent a significant investment of Development time. The fact that players can set them up and decorate them means there is going to be a digital ton of scenes that no longer require Dev input. Therefore, we need some kind of lure for players to visit other than residing in them or visiting friends.

I spoke to Lord British at the hangout and mentioned we should have more hooks for POT's and he agreed. Fishing might be one of those hooks (pardon the pun). I started to think on what other things might draw players in and on watching the older videos, I could see that Town Sieges were planned. No system has been spoken about as far as I am aware so I designed one. I added the PVP option because I like PVP and there is a lot of PVPers wanting to see more content for their style of play.

Anyways, in the long run, I really want to see the POT's used by the player-base and not end up being a million dollars worth of ghost towns and ego inflaters.

 

PVP pots can conduct a siege or invade another PVP Pot any time they want, unless the POT owner uses his/her power to ban them from entering , its not a Dev problem, use of their RPing skills between guilds.
I am asking why they have an Opt out for a part of the game that everyone else as to take part in.

 

@Woftam

If that's the case and nothing is decided yet ok But I have to go with what I read on here, and if it's someone with Dev+ i assume they know.