Non Violent forms of PVP

[Dubanka]

No, lol. It will always be consensual.

Everything in the expanion lands will be contestable and one would assume Seigeable

[Soulwanderer]

No, lol. It will always be consensual.

Yeah... because everything has been written in stone so far.

It may be that it ends up staying that way, but I really doubt it. It allows for too many griefing opportunities.

[Jadzia]

Yeah... because everything has been written in stone so far.

It may be that it ends up staying that way, but I really doubt it. It allows for too many griefing opportunities.

Ok. But if it stays this way don't complain later, since you know now that this is what is planned.

[Soulwanderer]

Ok. But if it stays this way don't complain later, since you know now that this is what is planned.

He said what he is imagining. He also imagined a more sandbox style server than the Peace server. We'll see what plays out over the next two months.

[Dontaze_Mebro]

No, lol. It will always be consensual.

I stand corrected, but you won't be able to hide in your shark cage for very long. You will run out of resources quickly and have to leave.

[Jadzia]

I stand corrected, but you won't be able to hide in your shark cage for very long. You will run out of resources quickly and have to leave.

Of course. All I said was that the main city being siegeable will be optional.

[ifireallymust]

I like that post, and I get some of your concerns. The blunt answer is... there really is an advantage to numbers. The only ways to completely stop that from being the case aren't very desirable (hard coded guild limits, instanced number-limited PvP, no asset destruction, etc). What can be done is to both give players the tools to not be trampled (defensive fortifications, wall mounted anti-siege weaponry, npc city guards) and, if it comes to it, implement prohibitively costly measures to having too many members.

In Shadowbane for example, the resources needed to make the best weapons were highly contested and very limited. Lot of guilds would fight over them, and when the small guild won and got the resources (which happened as often as not, even solo players would win the resources sometimes) they'd be able to equip a whole lot more of their member base out of it than those with more people. There was also maintenance in that game, and an idea that was kicked around by the players to prevent zerging was to raise the cost of that maintenance per account tagged.

Back to defensive sieges though. The advantage should always rest with the defender given equal skill and numbers, and it's up to the devs to make sure the tools are available to make that the case. As defenders we've taken those advantages and won against some majorly impressive odds.

EDIT: The music might not be appropriate for all ages... or work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGBuNmobGFo

We've also lost to zergs and even numbers who just outplayed us. That's the part a lot on the forums seem to have trouble with. In order for a fight to mean anything, there has to be a risk of losing and losing has to mean something. If sieges are implemented, everyone has to face up to the fact that at some point you will lose your city. It may not be in a fair fight, it may have been because it was a Saturday and your membership decided to go bar hopping instead of defending, or it might have just been to a smaller group of people who were more experienced. It will happen though. And it's fine. You regroup, you learn, you get revenge. And seeing your enemies city burn after they took yours is going to be way more memorable years down the road than creating your umpteenth basket, winning some PvE raid, or even ganking some one for a sweet piece of armor.

I also agree that attacking a city or homestead needs to have a cost involved with it. Maybe you have to construct an offensive totem, and to do that you need so much of certain resources that take some time to collect. Maybe later on you can use crafting and resource collection to improve your totem (rank it up), and as you do your enemies would have to build larger and more elaborate offensive totems requiring more resources. That way each attack involves some time and effort from the attacker rather than just throwing wave after failed wave at you with no cost to the attacking guild.

Once they open up a Siege talk forum I'm sure a lot of solid ideas for ways to make the experience fun for both PvPers and Crafters will come out. Let's hope it's sooner rather than later.

As for losing my city-or in my case, homestead-once in a great while (or even fairly frequently if I lived on a spot that had resources so valuable it would be worthwhile to repeatedly retake and rebuild there or build on a similar site after a successful siege destroyed my homestead). Sure, okay. Gives me motivation to build as smart as I can and maintain what I build as well as I can so that either I won't lose my homestead next time, or at least it will cost the attackers a great deal of time, effort, and resources to successfully siege me. Sounds fun, actually.

My issue is when there is no point in building at all, either because numbers are so dominant that they are the only real consideration, making defenses meaningless, or because the cost of attacking smaller groups of players is so negligible that the weekend destruction of a week's worth of time and effort is a regular occurance.

You are the first poster I have seen who has not suggested politics as the only real alternative to being run out of a game by a zerg. Thank you! While joining with nearby neighbors to defend each other in times of siege would be an enjoyable part of the game, I don't find joining the largest tribe or largest alliance or making 'friends' with large tribes in the region for the sole purpose of securing a degree of safety all that challenging or all that entertaining.

Some players do find in game politics extremely entertaining, and try to make it meaningful and complex, and I have no problem with them, I just don't want to have to play like they do. And it's also too easy in an MMO (which after all has no real life consequences) to just grab some pals and recruit every new player who stumbles into the game, then to go around attacking whoever you feel like and destroying whatever you can. Very low maintenance relationships are easy to maintain, and this game, like many others, already has some well-established cross-game guilds in it, joining them isn't a challenge (they tend to recruit heavily) and the challenge of running them and maintaining alliances between them is probably long over by now. It's true that the complex relationships sometimes found in Eve touches the edges of the true complexity the word 'politics' evokes, but most games don't, and I don't know that this one is ready for the second coming of Machiavelli yet. It sure isn't ready for the second coming of various Goon incarnations.

I could also see a place for thieving in this game down the road. If a siege will take a city, why can't a soloer sneak in and steal from players' baskets and homes? A skilled thief might even make a large Tribe regret successfully sieging a homestead, if said thief decides to spend some time sabotaging and stealing in the newly built city of his victorious enemies! This also sounds like a great deal of fun, and maybe to keep thieving from becoming too commonplace and annoying for random players, thieving could be ridiculously difficult and rarely successful, but somewhat more likely to succeed on land that used to belong to the thief. After all, the thief would know that land better than anyone else, although as time passed, any home turf advantage for the thief could fade.

There just has to be some way to prevent everything from boiling down to tribe size. And there has to be some way to defend property when one is asleep in real life. Automated defenses, traps, patrolling pets, all would make it so not being online doesn't automatically mean losing everything. And if a siege takes enough time to destroy a well-fortified homestead, band, clan, or tribe, it's also more likely that the owner(s) will return in time to participate in defending their home. And that could do away with the need for timers and vulnerability/invulnerability windows.

Well, I'm a bit tired, so this isn't the most organized thing I've ever written, but you get the idea.

Added after 24 minutes:

And then there is assassination. If tribe leaders (from Chiefs on down to lesser ranks) suffered stat loss when assassinated (the more powerful the leader and the more difficult the assassination, the greater the stat loss), and if stat regain was sufficiently difficult, then attacking even a solo player would have potentially severe longterm consequences for even the most powerful tribe. So assassinating the Chief of the largest, wealthiest tribe in Xsyon within the Chief's own city or outpost, with added bonuses for every tribe member in the area and a large bonus for escaping alive would render the chief personally weak for some time after the assassination. Perhaps successful assassinations could also add to the assassin's own skills, and failed attempts (especially failed attempts that end in death) could cause stat loss for the assassin.

[Soulwanderer]

As for losing my city-or in my case, homestead-once in a great while (or even fairly frequently if I lived on a spot that had resources so valuable it would be worthwhile to repeatedly retake and rebuild there or build on a similar site after a successful siege destroyed my homestead). Sure, okay. Gives me motivation to build as smart as I can and maintain what I build as well as I can so that either I won't lose my homestead next time, or at least it will cost the attackers a great deal of time, effort, and resources to successfully siege me. Sounds fun, actually.

My issue is when there is no point in building at all, either because numbers are so dominant that they are the only real consideration, making defenses meaningless, or because the cost of attacking smaller groups of players is so negligible that the weekend destruction of a week's worth of time and effort is a regular occurance.

You are the first poster I have seen who has not suggested politics as the only real alternative to being run out of a game by a zerg. Thank you! While joining with nearby neighbors to defend each other in times of siege would be an enjoyable part of the game, I don't find joining the largest tribe or largest alliance or making 'friends' with large tribes in the region for the sole purpose of securing a degree of safety all that challenging or all that entertaining.

Some players do find in game politics extremely entertaining, and try to make it meaningful and complex, and I have no problem with them, I just don't want to have to play like they do. And it's also too easy in an MMO (which after all has no real life consequences) to just grab some pals and recruit every new player who stumbles into the game, then to go around attacking whoever you feel like and destroying whatever you can. Very low maintenance relationships are easy to maintain, and this game, like many others, already has some well-established cross-game guilds in it, joining them isn't a challenge (they tend to recruit heavily) and the challenge of running them and maintaining alliances between them is probably long over by now. It's true that the complex relationships sometimes found in Eve touches the edges of the true complexity the word 'politics' evokes, but most games don't, and I don't know that this one is ready for the second coming of Machiavelli yet. It sure isn't ready for the second coming of various Goon incarnations.

I could also see a place for thieving in this game down the road. If a siege will take a city, why can't a soloer sneak in and steal from players' baskets and homes? A skilled thief might even make a large Tribe regret successfully sieging a homestead, if said thief decides to spend some time sabotaging and stealing in the newly built city of his victorious enemies! This also sounds like a great deal of fun, and maybe to keep thieving from becoming too commonplace and annoying for random players, thieving could be ridiculously difficult and rarely successful, but somewhat more likely to succeed on land that used to belong to the thief. After all, the thief would know that land better than anyone else, although as time passed, any home turf advantage for the thief could fade.

There just has to be some way to prevent everything from boiling down to tribe size. And there has to be some way to defend property when one is asleep in real life. Automated defenses, traps, patrolling pets, all would make it so not being online doesn't automatically mean losing everything. And if a siege takes enough time to destroy a well-fortified homestead, band, clan, or tribe, it's also more likely that the owner(s) will return in time to participate in defending their home. And that could do away with the need for timers and vulnerability/invulnerability windows.

Well, I'm a bit tired, so this isn't the most organized thing I've ever written, but you get the idea.

I'm all for soloing. I spent a lot of my time in Shadowbane in that role before I joined VD, and the Thief was actually my main. You just need to have different goals as a solo toon. When I did have a home as a solo Thief I hid it well. It wasn't in a convenient location, but I knew I couldn't hold it when the people I was ticking off scouted out the location. As a soloer, imo homes need to be mobile. You drop a homestead, kick a tent out, do what crafting you need to do but don't put too much effort into the home. If some one ticks you off, you can launch your own mini-war against them and relocate to be in a better position to do that.

I claimed whole zones as mine and killed anyone who came out into it when I was around. It wasn't the same game as larger scale guilds were playing, but I still had fun and hopefully the devs will keep the soloer in the back of their minds when adding the larger scale activites. If a home steader thinks of themselves more as a group of nomads than settlers I'd think it'd be a whole lot more fun and realistic of what to expect from larger guilds once sieges go live. In some ways that actually gives them a bit more power as they don't have as much to lose.

[ifireallymust]

I'm all for soloing. I spent a lot of my time in Shadowbane in that role before I joined VD, and the Thief was actually my main. You just need to have different goals as a solo toon. When I did have a home as a solo Thief I hid it well. It wasn't in a convenient location, but I knew I couldn't hold it when the people I was ticking off scouted out the location. As a soloer, imo homes need to be mobile. You drop a homestead, kick a tent out, do what crafting you need to do but don't put too much effort into the home. If some one ticks you off, you can launch your own mini-war against them and relocate to be in a better position to do that.

I claimed whole zones as mine and killed anyone who came out into it when I was around. It wasn't the same game as larger scale guilds were playing, but I still had fun and hopefully the devs will keep the soloer in the back of their minds when adding the larger scale activites. If a home steader thinks of themselves more as a group of nomads than settlers I'd think it'd be a whole lot more fun and realistic of what to expect from larger guilds once sieges go live. In some ways that actually gives them a bit more power as they don't have as much to lose.

Added an idea for assassination to my previous post, too.

As for a different style of gameplay for the solo player, if either the game world were larger (as it will eventually be) or it were easier to hide in it (such as in caves-with entrances hidden by waterfalls or brush is an old classic-and the ability to modify cave structures to increase size and defensibility), a solo player, without building traditional defenses, but perhaps constructing more camoflauged defenses, such as walls and structures that blend in to the terrain), could remain quite some time in one location. Of course, a wise solo player (or for that matter, anyone, come to think of it) will have tools and supplies hidden in other, scattered locations, in case a siege on the main location is successful. And of course players who really enjoy exploring and wandering around in the game world would be more likely to find those locations than those who tend to stay put. Want to solo but still want to stay put for a bit and craft or cause trouble in a nearby location? It shouldn't be impossible, if a player is willing to use some time and intelligence to figure out how to do it.

Edit: Right now I could pick any of a half dozen places in the mist to live in if I chose to, and although someone would stumble across my totem eventually, it might take awhile.

[maelwydd]

A cave behind a waterfall would be sweet!