Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity
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Regarding to yesterday arranged Q&A where sieges were one of the main topics. I would like to see sieges more like a whole guild activity rather than centrilized around a minority of the playerbase. In Albion Online territory wars are usually 5v5 battles which has leaded to discussions that is this the best procedure or not. This divides opinions, most of the people will be totally excluded from for GvGs but in other this gives also for smaller guilds a chance to compete. Now if I heard right, in Fractured there will be at least 20v20 fights (and please correct me if I am wrong) and I think that sounds very reasonable number of participants.
However, I was wondering, that what if the number of participants in sieges would depend of the size (stage) of the sieged city? Therefore, if those city stages are still a thing it would make sense that conquer a metropolis would need more than 20 players and in other hand if we are speaking of a hamlet or village perhaps a smaller amount of players can be enough.
I do not know what is exactly planned but it would be great if a siege would need investment from the whole guild and not just from those who are in the siege battle team. I would personally like to see crafters and gatherers involded as well, not to actually participating for fighting, but maybe for making all kind of preparations related to defensives and siege weapons and maybe even repair those during the siege, or perhaps crafting something new if strategy needs to be changed in the middle of the battle. Perhaps there could be something related to gear crafting as well idk...
What you people think? Would it be nice if sieges would need effort from almost a whole guild? Not just beforehand but also more closely the situation or even during the battle. Do you have any ideas how different specialist could be utilized during the siege? Or perhaps do you think that the whole siege situation should be handled only by the battle team?
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Hi @Tuoni,
Just some clarifications that maybe you missed from yesterday Q&A on Sieges. First, the number of participants in sieges DO depend on the size of the city. For small cities, the number is the 20x20 you mentioned, but for metropolis size cities the number of players is 50x50. At least this is their initial plan. Second, sieges are supposed to cost a lot of money and resources, so for larger sieges, those planning it need to amass a large amount of money, either from cooperating guilds or players loyal to a given city planning a siege in another city.
That is what I got more or less.
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the problem that Archeage had was guilds would use freelancers to attend the castle sieges. they'd join the guild before the siege and afterwards would leave that guild.
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@Phylosophys said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
Hi @Tuoni,
Just some clarifications that maybe you missed from yesterday Q&A on Sieges. First, the number of participants in sieges DO depend on the size of the city. For small cities, the number is the 20x20 you mentioned, but for metropolis size cities the number of players is 50x50. At least this is their initial plan.
I knew it, I had the feeling that I missed something especially related to this part, thanks. Anyhow, I am pleased this is the plan, it makes a lot of sense imo.
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@Jetah said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
the problem that Archeage had was guilds would use freelancers to attend the castle sieges. they'd join the guild before the siege and afterwards would leave that guild.
I remember how this was a problem also in Albion where basically the same people inside alliance was fighting most of the matches. However, this kind of guild hopping can be blocked with setting timers so you cannot change guilds straight away and especially if trying to get back in the guild you have recently left. Okay this helps in some cases but of course alts can be used as well for this kind of behaviour.
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@Tuoni said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
@Jetah said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
the problem that Archeage had was guilds would use freelancers to attend the castle sieges. they'd join the guild before the siege and afterwards would leave that guild.
I remember how this was a problem also in Albion where basically the same people inside alliance was fighting most of the matches. However, this kind of guild hopping can be blocked with setting timers so you cannot change guilds straight away and especially if trying to get back in the guild you have recently left. Okay this helps in some cases but of course alts can be used as well for this kind of behaviour.
However, at the moment the system is planned like you can rent mercenaries to fight your battles. This can of course work just fine but there is a possibility that this system can be used too much wrong. Imagine a situation where you try to attack against different guilds, cities or defend your own, and every time you face the same top team without chance to compete.
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In Albion, everyone contributed to the territory attacks, especially in big guilds, but in more subtle ways. I quit the game shortly after it became f2p, so my information might be outdated, but this is how it worked: every month it was the reset (invasion day) in which everyone lost their territories and you had to claim them with a raid party protected by a big zerg. After the reset day, starting from the war camps (which couldn't be owned by anyone), every tower could launch an attack on a certain tower. So basically, alliances owned whole biomes and you had to start with the war camps. Every day at a certain hour each war camp could either be pacified or used to launch an attack, which resulted in guilds having daily ZvZ around war camps hours. If an attack was launched, the gvgers had to move their gear to the tower the attack was launched from, which often required being escorted by a zerg. The cost of the gvg gear depended on the zone (because of the IP cap), but in end-game zones it was very expensive. Because of this, guilds had dedicated gatherers who donated % of their mats and dedicated crafters who donated focus to supply this gear. Albion has a lot of detailed logs, so you could reliably tell if the gatherers donated the agreed percent.
The gvg (20v20 for towns, 5v5 for towers) was the last step in territory control, but as you can see there was a lot of work from the whole guild in this process.
And then the towers could be leveled, which opened the whole cgvg scene. The best part in cgvg is that, especially in big guilds with lots of towers, new teams could get gvg experience without spending much or affecting the guild negatively.
This also concludes why I quit: all that activity not only takes a lot of time, but also requires people to log in at a certain time every day. Then you also have season-related stuff (mage def, mage raids, maybe castles). If you play about 30h/week, you have no time to do anything other than guild-related stuff and if you're in a bad guild, a lot of content is locked from you. If Fractured turns out to have the same model, I'm not sure this is the game for me.
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@Razvan said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
In Albion, everyone contributed to the territory attacks, especially in big guilds, but in more subtle ways.
This is true. Especially when playing in Black Zones almost everything was done for the guild.
...guilds had dedicated gatherers who donated % of their mats and dedicated crafters who donated focus to supply this gear. Albion has a lot of detailed logs, so you could reliably tell if the gatherers donated the agreed percent.
One thing I hate about in Albion is how those dedicated crafters were too often shared slave alts of elite and not exactly players who really were dedicated for crafting. Of course this was not the thing in all cases but too many times gatherers did the actual dirty job so selected people could refine and craft for easy fame and have a free-cost progression. I hope that could be avoided in Fractured.
I remember how those detailed logs were not in the beta or at the launch and it was a really hard task to create a reasonable donate system which could not be abused. This logistic nightmare burned some members from our guild very fast and also tighten the general atmosphere. It is a really good that this QoL feature was finally implemented.
This also concludes why I quit: all that activity not only takes a lot of time, but also requires people to log in at a certain time every day. Then you also have season-related stuff (mage def, mage raids, maybe castles). If you play about 30h/week, you have no time to do anything other than guild-related stuff and if you're in a bad guild, a lot of content is locked from you. If Fractured turns out to have the same model, I'm not sure this is the game for me.
Now this is a crucial part what I hope will be done better in Fractured. I hope that players would not need to devote 100% for the guild and there also will be time for themselves even in the top guilds. However, I also hope that when it is time for some serious action, in this case sieges, those events would offer a wide range activities for all members in their specializations.
Would this kind of model sound better than what it is in the Albion?
In Albion those GvGs can happen daily which is one of the reasons why especially in top guilds there is constant demand for devote all the playtime for the guild. I am not sure how this will go in Fractured but I presume sieges would happen a little bit more rarely, perhaps weekly, I have no idea and I would actually like to know what is planned. Based on the latest Q&A it was said that sieges cost a lot of money and I got the impression that sieges are not a such thing what guilds can afford to do in daily basis. This would actually support the idea that sieges happens a little bit rarely and players would have more time for themselves and they can focus to do other 'not so serious' stuff with their guild members, like random OWPvP activities.
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@Razvan Moreover, In Fractured, if things are getting too heavy, we always has the option to move in Arboreus and relax.
Also I presume that if things are getting too serious in Tartaros, perhaps Syndesia offers a good middle ground solution where is more space for semi-hardcore or even for casual guilds, at least that is what I hope for.
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Perhaps cool down can be added, so when one character attends a siege, he has a cool down before he can join next one, so players will have to rotate who does each siege, so not same players have fun with siege all the time, while rest watch.
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My question is the game going to be able to handle 50v50 fighting on the same screen?
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@Farlander Good question, it is hard to say but it sounds like a challenge. I presume this can be done but how much this will be away from performance and will cause unplayable lag are the big questions.
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@Gothix said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
Perhaps cool down can be added, so when one character attends a siege, he has a cool down before he can join next one, so players will have to rotate who does each siege, so not same players have fun with siege all the time, while rest watch.
Cooldown is one good option if some limitations are wanted to create. It might even be that restrictions are not needed but I guess beta test will show how this will go.
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There was one thing from Q&A what I have still wondered. @Prometheus mentioned that defenders should raid those catapults a.s.a.p. so their gates would not be shattered. This made me wonder that how those defenders can raid the catapults if they are still fortified inside the citywalls? Is there some kind of secret door system or are those defenders fighting outside of the wall?
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Another way to not have too many players on one screen, would be to require sieges to have several phases, and multiple jobs...
Then you would need to decide what player goes in, in which phase, and does what job, so there is more to do for more people.
The worst option of all is to limit the sieges to low number of players. People are here for fun, and sieges are the huge part of it. For PvP players, not being able to join siege due to player number limitations would literally be game breaking.
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Would this kind of model sound better than what it is in the Albion?
I guess the answer depends on how much you can play per day. If you have a lot of spare time and you wish to dedicate that to the game, then Albion's system is good. If you have other obligations, then you'd probably opt for a more relaxed atmosphere. I'm not saying they have to do it my way, I'm saying that it would be nice to know in advance what kind of players is the game aimed at.
@Tuoni
The problem with crafters/refiners in Albion is that there isn't much in it other than being limited by premium (focus points) and the horrible grind. Eventually, some guilds realised that it makes more sense to have your own crafters instead of investing in someone who might eventually leave the guild. Still, you can only refine that much even with a full spec'ed character and in the guilds I've been, donating focus was a thing.@Gothix
I know people in Albion (from my last guild) who merc'ed on their alts even for enemy alliances and they made good money from it. I don't really think there is a good solution for this kind of behavior, unless all the sieges happen at the same time (or split them in 2 timezones, EU and NA). On the other hand, merc'ing should be less of a problem in Fractured thanks to the size of the sieges.@Farlander
One suggestion is to have multiple phases and objectives spread across the map for each phase (outskirts -> wall -> keep). Each phase could have 5 objectives. Whenever a faction controls at least 3 objectives in the same time, the timer goes down for them. When the timer for a team reaches 0, the siege either ends (if it's the defending side), or advances to the next stage (if it's the attacking side).PS: My beef with the other planets is that they are not necessarily less hardcore (you can hardcore pve if you wish on Arboreus), but have completely different gameplay. Basically, if you want unrestricted pvp, demon planet is the only place you can do it.
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@Farlander said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
My question is the game going to be able to handle 50v50 fighting on the same screen?
i dont even think 100 can fit on the screen simultaneously.
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@Jetah said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
@Farlander said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
My question is the game going to be able to handle 50v50 fighting on the same screen?
i dont even think 100 can fit on the screen simultaneously.
If there is collision detection, then no; otherwise, they can fit on the screen and it will look like this. Having collision detection adds a lot of complexity and griefing opportunities, so the second scenario is more plausible.
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One siege does not need to happen on one screen though.
If you have more complex mechanics, one part of siege could be going on near city walls yes, but other part of siege could be happening in the back near supply line, maybe 3rd part of siege near resource spot, maybe some people should be in charge of delivering supplies for the siege...
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@Razvan said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
@Jetah said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
@Farlander said in Sieges: And how to make those a whole guild activity:
My question is the game going to be able to handle 50v50 fighting on the same screen?
i dont even think 100 can fit on the screen simultaneously.
If there is collision detection, then no; otherwise, they can fit on the screen and it will look like this. Having collision detection adds a lot of complexity and griefing opportunities, so the second scenario is more plausible.
we've been told that players can block others. so i assume it's in the game.
