City Destruction

Tecton

Looking back over the feedback and usage patterns for City Destruction, I think that we need to make some tweaks and changes to the system to try and make it a more fun and involving part of Achaea. Now that classleads are done (for the moment), I'm going to share some ideas / brainstorming that I had, and give you guys a chance to add your two cents in the formative stages.

I'm going to preface this by saying that none of this is set in stone, I'm just throwing it out there for you guys to look over and comment based on your own dealings with the current system! Numbers in parenthesis are just placeholders and rough numbers.

Don't like something? Say why! Got a better idea? Post it up! 

Without further ado:

War Points:

• A new tally system that acts as an end-goal for mutual hostilities, more details interspersed throughout the proposal
• When hostile relations are declared, the first city to declare will specify a war point goal as well as a gold bounty/wager for the war. The second city will then either accept or decline and a different wager can be set.
• The bounty/wager is then held in escrow for both cities, and granted to the victor upon reaching the war point goal.
• War points are accumulated in the following ways:
• Killing enemy soldiers.
• Destroying enemy rooms.
• (Potentially) Sanctioned raid time.
• Foiling a sanctioned raid - dismantling/capturing an enemy tank.

Sanctioned Raids:

• Restore general experience loss for deaths inside cities when a sanctioned raid is not active.
• This could potentially be a 50% reduced value.
• Sanctioned raids are automatically declared when (5) deaths occur in a (30) minute timeframe inside the city.
• Upon sanctioning all experience loss/gain is suspended
• Sanctioned raids will now have a minimum timeframe (to prevent stopping/starting by raiders to take advantage of the experience loss.)
  

City Destruction:

• Tanks become a new form of resource available to cities, they're checked out by an appropriately ranked citizen.
• There is a limit of (5) tanks at any one time still, but this can be supplemented by capturing enemy tanks in sanctioned raids (up to a maximum of (3).
• The tanks would regenerate (up to the maximum) every Achaean year.
• Instead of summoning a spark, a tank is placed in the room with the raiders, it feeds of the hostile energy to charge the tank.
• Each defender death in the city causes the tank to charge up, with three cumulative levels of effectiveness:
• Level 1: Destroys the current room
• Level 2: Destroys the current room and one room in each direction.
• Level 3: Destroys the current room and all rooms in line-of-sight from the current room.
• There would need to be some slow buildup on it's own to provide reason for the defending forces to want to defend.
• Tanks need to be manually detonated by the attacking forces (an instant ability)
• Victory experience scales based on the number of rooms destroyed.

• Defending forces can route the attackers by clearing them out of the room, either by killing them or forcing them to move. Once they control the room with the tank, they can:
• Dismantle the tank, granting a similar experience bonus as attackers do upon destroying a room.
• Capture the tank, granting a smaller/no experience bonus, but adding an additional tank to the defending city's arsenal.
• Manual city room repairs are removed.
• Rooms are repaired at the rate of one every (3) Achaean months, at a fixed cost to the city.

Empowered fonts:

• Potentially new powers added to the font arsenal:
• Something to speed up the decay of enemy room effects inside the city.
• Something to provide a city-wide "indoor" protection for a very limited duration.

Kresslack

I like the idea of running in and having to basically construct a bomb and defend it while working as a team to get it to detonate. Will make the objective of holding rooms more important and interesting. 

What about a time limit for sanctioned raids to where if no defenders are killed after a certain amount of time, it ends the raid? I say that because usually the biggest complain about raids is when the defending city either doesn't have enough people to defend with, or simply give up. Not that giving up should be rewarded, should still be enough time to destroy at least one room. But say, maybe if at least one defender or attacker doesn't die within 15 minutes for example, it would bring the raid to a close.

Dunn

Reminds me of Counter Strike. I've always enjoyed the team aspect of something like that beyond the "Shut up and summon" method that we have currently.

Kinilan

I'm confused. Nothing about this is seafaring...


If both sides have to agree, it will never happen. The raid system sort of works. the war system does not. mashing the sort of working bit into the broken bit isn't going to fix anything. If the second city refuses to go to war they should suffer some sort of penalty. Otherwise it's almost always in their best interest to refuse. Or they just shouldn't have a say in it at all.

Line of sight room destruction is interesting but some cities could suffer more than others depending on layouts.


 

Tecton

Kresslack said:

I like the idea of running in and having to basically construct a bomb and defend it while working as a team to get it to detonate. Will make the objective of holding rooms more important and interesting. 

What about a time limit for sanctioned raids to where if no defenders are killed after a certain amount of time, it ends the raid? I say that because usually the biggest complain about raids is when the defending city either doesn't have enough people to defend with, or simply give up. Not that giving up should be rewarded, should still be enough time to destroy at least one room. But say, maybe if at least one defender or attacker doesn't die within 15 minutes for example, it would bring the raid to a close.

I can't see why something like that couldn't be considered - my biggest concern with the system is having the defending city having a reason to defend their home, rather than just going to hunt for a few hours while the raiders do their thing. The system should be rewarding on a defending and an attacking basis - so that's why there would be tangible rewards for interacting with the raiders (experience rewards for capturing/dismantling a tank) and and some compulsion to do so (the slow trickle charge on the tanks that will give them the ability to cause (some) havok if the defenders decide they don't want to play ball.)

Tecton

Kinilan said:

I'm confused. Nothing about this is seafaring...


If both sides have to agree, it will never happen. The raid system sort of works. the war system does not. mashing the sort of working bit into the broken bit isn't going to fix anything. If the second city refuses to go to war they should suffer some sort of penalty. Otherwise it's almost always in their best interest to refuse. Or they just shouldn't have a say in it at all.

Line of sight room destruction is interesting but some cities could suffer more than others depending on layouts.


 

Right - there would need to be some balance there of a fallback if they don't accept, while keeping things fair so that say, Cyrene doesn't just decide to go to war with Mhaldor over and over again, just because it can win and make a quick and easy million gold. Definitely something to ponder

Silas

Yeah, not sure about LoS room destruction without manual repairs, unless room destruction movement penalties are removed/substantially reduced. It's a cool idea in theory, but having to spend 5 minutes walking from the newsroom to the bank would quickly become a pain in the arse.

The rest of it sounds okay, but the idea of fixing a war goal in points seems a bit weird. It doesn't seem immersive for a war to be the first to 50 kills, for instance.

I realise, of course, that it's much harder to create a more immersive system, but I think rather than hardcoding the win conditions, you'd be better spending time creating content that we could use to facilitate win conditions that would fit different types of conflict. Maybe during war rooms can't be repaired, and cities must think about how much of their city they'll sacrifice before they'll sacrifice their pride and admit defeat. Of course, room destruction would then have to carry a negative penalty so that cities can't just leave the city in ruin and act like it's no big deal.

Maybe something around villages, something with trees/red fog, something with angels, demons and giant Lovecraftian monsters, etc. Also Hashan and Cyrene, I guess (lol).

@Kinilan makes a good point, though, in that there needs to be a way to force a war, though of course wars shouldn't be started because a city/faction is bored. Maybe since every city has an active patron now, make war declarations require patron approval. The city leader should still make the declaration, but once the Patron adds His/Her backing, the war becomes official and the other side must respond. Of course, patrons should also be making sure that there is a way for the other side to avoid the war if they so choose. Accept terms A, B, C and D or go to war, etc.

Kinilan

Lots of fun and exciting things you could come up with for cities that refuse to fight like a tax on gold moving in/out of the city accounts, a negative experience modifier for citizens, reduced guard strength/count, reduced health/mana sipping. Deactivation of city improvements (that were supposed to be destructable but that part of the system was never added). Whatever. A war grace period after a loss/refusal would be an easy enough way to prevent abuse.

Not that I think refusal of a declaration should be an option If cities want to avoid a war it should be done politically through the city leadership, not simply through a command in the system. The flip side to that being that maybe cities shouldn't be able to declare for just any old reason.

Anedhel

Rooms remaining damaged is an appealing idea. I always thought raiders should be able to declare an objective, and if the City is unable to come up with a reasonable condition for victory or a draw, they could walk away with something. Money, probably.

For instance, your MoW/Council member/City Leader declares a raid, with the objective of, say, destroying a specific room.

The raiders then get a window to achieve that objective in. If they win, that is to say, they accomplish what they came to do, they make off with some of the City's money, an experience boost, or something like that. If time expires, they're booted, or for some other reason they fail to achieve their objective, the raiders have to retreat, and can't sanction for some time (so that people don't just keep trying again and again and again).

I think the biggest objective to a codified war system is the disparity between the potential for conflict and the way it actually plays out. Hardcoding something like Silas' idea will simply turn into 'who can raid when the other guys are asleep more?'. Implementing a minimum defenders requirement somewhere (enlisted City soldiers) is probably not a bad idea. Too many people sign up to be City soldiers for no well-considered reason (apart from summoning sparks) anyways.

Silas

Yeah, I already started a thread for minimum defenders requirement in the dais. That definitely needs to be considered at the same time.

Tecton

Silas said:

Yeah, not sure about LoS room destruction without manual repairs, unless room destruction movement penalties are removed/substantially reduced. It's a cool idea in theory, but having to spend 5 minutes walking from the newsroom to the bank would quickly become a pain in the arse.

The rest of it sounds okay, but the idea of fixing a war goal in points seems a bit weird. It doesn't seem immersive for a war to be the first to 50 kills, for instance.

I realise, of course, that it's much harder to create a more immersive system, but I think rather than hardcoding the win conditions, you'd be better spending time creating content that we could use to facilitate win conditions that would fit different types of conflict. Maybe during war rooms can't be repaired, and cities must think about how much of their city they'll sacrifice before they'll sacrifice their pride and admit defeat. Of course, room destruction would then have to carry a negative penalty so that cities can't just leave the city in ruin and act like it's no big deal.

Maybe something around villages, something with trees/red fog, something with angels, demons and giant Lovecraftian monsters, etc. Also Hashan and Cyrene, I guess (lol).

@Kinilan makes a good point, though, in that there needs to be a way to force a war, though of course wars shouldn't be started because a city/faction is bored. Maybe since every city has an active patron now, make war declarations require patron approval. The city leader should still make the declaration, but once the Patron adds His/Her backing, the war becomes official and the other side must respond. Of course, patrons should also be making sure that there is a way for the other side to avoid the war if they so choose. Accept terms A, B, C and D or go to war, etc.

Yeah, the war point system isn't necessarily integral to the overall redesign of city destruction - more of something we could add along-side to give a win condition to mutually-declared hostilities.

Some interesting ideas about the persistent destruction of the rooms - I like this idea quite a lot - good stuff!

Anedhel

I like the idea of forcing Cities to consider who they'll allow to be a soldier. Having lots of cannon fodder for summoning sparks is a plus, but it also means you can be raided when your cream-of-the-crop isn't about. If you're more restrictive about it, you become more predictable, but you're also tougher on defence. Anything that forces choices on people, I'm all for.

Kinilan

If only soldiers were considered defenders though it puts all the power in the hands of the defenders the same as with being able to refuse a declaration. Under a system like that it's a safe bet Cyrene, who never uses their tanks now and make no use of their city soldiers, would deny anyone from enlisting just to ensure they never get raided.

Anedhel

If they work in the way Silas worded your idea about either accepting declarations or not, if you don't have a military, you can't refuse terms?

Naisar

I'm not sure defender deaths charging up the tanks is a good idea.  It creates some side-effects that aren't desirable as raiders will focus (or hunt down) the easiest targets in order to charge tanks quickly. This results in a lot of excited young players getting flattened over and over again.  From the defenders' side, there are situations where they simply don't want the younger players helping because they just serve as free tank fuel.  A soft solution would be to weight defender deaths based on might or level, of course, but regardless it introduces an aspect into Achaean group combat that wasn't present previously: your allies' deaths having a direct negative impact on the raid.  It will result in heightened annoyance towards those who die needlessly.

Silas

Kinilan said:

If only soldiers were considered defenders though it puts all the power in the hands of the defenders the same as with being able to refuse a declaration. Under a system like that it's a safe bet Cyrene, who never uses their tanks now and make no use of their city soldiers, would deny anyone from enlisting just to ensure they never get raided.

I consider this less about raids, and more about formal war declarations. Raids, I assume, would continue as they are currently - somebody is bored, goes to instigate a fight at defendable.

ETA: To stop cities disbanding their military so they don't have to participate in this part of the game, perhaps make it so that if a city doesn't have a standing, active military constituting x% of their active population, they'll lose y amount of rooms or z% of their coffers every year to bandits.

Jarrod

Concerns based on the initial proposal:

1) Causing any natural buildup encourages raiders to attack when there are fewer qualified defenders about, as they'll eventually reach their maximum potential regardless of any killing with no risk.

2) Removing any natural buildup encourages defenders to not attack without overwhelming odds lest they have a single bad rush cost them all their rooms.

3) 'Non-coms' become a liability as opposed to assistance in defense

4) 'Capturing' a tank will never happen with a competent raiding group. If three raiders are prepared to instantly set off the tank should a fight turn sour, it's going off regardless.

Possible solutions to those problems:

1) Natural buildup occurs, but stops at certain point, ideally level 1 where it would only take out the single room. This means you could accomplish an objective if you raided an empty city, but a relatively minor one.

2) Cause a brief 'cooldown' period once the tank hits the threshold to level up. Meaning once the tank is 'fed' enough to hit level 2, it can't gain more power until it 'settles'. This means a failed rush would cost you, but you'd have a freebie to messup without costing you a lot of rooms.

3) Make it so killing people who aren't soldiers is worth significantly less (1/10th?) towards charging the tank, and that kills by those who aren't soldiers are worth significantly less as well. Meaning you want soldiers to go on the offensive with you, but those who don't enjoy combat and offensive raiding can still defend their homes without being costly towards the tank.

4) Possibles: Make detonating the tank a ~5s channel that you can't act during with a 3rd person message. Make a specified number of defenders/soldiers (2-3) who are non-graced prevent the tank from blowing up if they're in the room.

Some other issues that are basically impossible to address from a coding standpoint: Non-citizens defending a city. Rogues/Other cities, basically acting as a zero-risk part of the defense group. The encouragement to work in rooms with higher LoS benefits cities with beckon more than others (walling every direction is easy, double-blocking every direction is not). I'm sure there's other things as well, but this is a first thoughts sort of thing.

Tecton

Jarrod said:

Concerns based on the initial proposal:

1) Causing any natural buildup encourages raiders to attack when there are fewer qualified defenders about, as they'll eventually reach their maximum potential regardless of any killing with no risk.

2) Removing any natural buildup encourages defenders to not attack without overwhelming odds lest they have a single bad rush cost them all their rooms.

3) 'Non-coms' become a liability as opposed to assistance in defense

4) 'Capturing' a tank will never happen with a competent raiding group. If three raiders are prepared to instantly set off the tank should a fight turn sour, it's going off regardless.

Possible solutions to those problems:

1) Natural buildup occurs, but stops at certain point, ideally level 1 where it would only take out the single room. This means you could accomplish an objective if you raided an empty city, but a relatively minor one.

2) Cause a brief 'cooldown' period once the tank hits the threshold to level up. Meaning once the tank is 'fed' enough to hit level 2, it can't gain more power until it 'settles'. This means a failed rush would cost you, but you'd have a freebie to messup without costing you a lot of rooms.

3) Make it so killing people who aren't soldiers is worth significantly less (1/10th?) towards charging the tank, and that kills by those who aren't soldiers are worth significantly less as well. Meaning you want soldiers to go on the offensive with you, but those who don't enjoy combat and offensive raiding can still defend their homes without being costly towards the tank.

4) Possibles: Make detonating the tank a ~5s channel that you can't act during with a 3rd person message. Make a specified number of defenders/soldiers (2-3) who are non-graced prevent the tank from blowing up if they're in the room.

Some other issues that are basically impossible to address from a coding standpoint: Non-citizens defending a city. Rogues/Other cities, basically acting as a zero-risk part of the defense group. The encouragement to work in rooms with higher LoS benefits cities with beckon more than others (walling every direction is easy, double-blocking every direction is not). I'm sure there's other things as well, but this is a first thoughts sort of thing.

1) Yeah, there would definitely be a cap.

2) Something like this with an area-wide message would be doable.

3) Definitely need some scaling in there to stop just picking off the weakest targets.

4) Still up in the air on whether it would be instant or not - I can see the benefits to it being a channeled thing - my original thought for it being instant would be as a "dying breath" action.

Silas

I think making it a dying breath action would be pretty obnoxious. Defending your city only to find out that there was nothing you could've done to defend it would be a bit silly.

Anedhel

You can solve problem 3 by having the raiders have to possess the corpse in order to use it for your tank. That way, you can't just sit in a city and range damage people, you have to, in some fashion, take the fight to them, at least enough to get you the corpses you need. If it scales like essence does, for shrines (albeit probably a lot less corpses required than for filling a shrine), one good rush can get you everything you need to blow up a room.

Jarrod

That would be counterproductive in the end, the same city you would be getting poked at from range while they raided you would be killing you from range while you raided them.

Besides, range is significantly reduced on most things, and I'm sure the few things that aren't addressed yet will be eventually.

Anedhel

Hmm. I don't like that raiders get to sneak in, and make defenders come to them. That makes no sense to me.

Cathy

How about basing the amount a kill on an enemy gives by their CR - a CR6 / leader gives 10 (for example), a CR 5 gives 8, CR 4 gives 6, CR 3 gives 4, CR 2 gives 2 and CR 1 gives 1. That will ensure that the lower ranged people can be involved and help out in a non-damaging way, and also that there is a reason to try to get rid of the city leaders/esteemed members.

Hasar

I don't think basing it off CR is a good idea, or anything like that, tbh. CR in particular doesn't really associate well with how much someone contributes to a raid, @Cathy.

Cathy

Hasar said:

I don't think basing it off CR is a good idea, or anything like that, tbh. CR in particular doesn't really associate well with how much someone contributes to a raid, @Cathy.

It doesn't always scale, no, but it does mean that new people have the chance to get involved, and that the older, bolder, higher ranked people either have to get better at defending, or they need to not get in the way.

Anedhel

That'd just encourage even more people to hide in journals. If you don't like to fight, and you're suddenly an actual priority, anytime a raid's declared, you'll just go somewhere you can't be found.

ETA: Not to mention, it'll be discouraging and damaging to the current structure to promote only combat types from moving up the ladder. That kind of mentality rarely leads to good things, in any field but combat (and not always, even then).

Taraza

I like the idea of having limitations on sanction raids and an more elaborate system rather than just occupy a city and outside of a city for hours upon end. At the current moment, most individuals just journal or leave the realms if they are not feeling up to defending. War should be more orientated and an aspect for all members of the realms to actually enjoy instead of just based off of combat. Just my two cents. 

Hasar

I think we should all be friends, and join forces to destroy Delos.

PVE forever! WHO'S WITH ME!

Achimrst

Hasar said:

I think we should all be friends, and join forces to destroy Delos.

PVE forever! WHO'S WITH ME!

But...I have a house in Delos and everything ;-;

Anedhel

How about designating a number of rooms that are essential for a City to defend, as well?

I like the idea of leaving it up to players to decide how far a war goes, how much they're willing to put up with. But, it's also stupid to not establish a higher limit on damage. No City can withstand siege forever.

So, let's say that if certain rooms are damaged, they can't be repaired until the war is over? Important things that -actually- mess with you. Shops, Postal Offices, Banks, Barracks, Council Rooms, Arenas?

This gives Cities the option of fortifying those places with guards, but that sacrifices general defence, since those particular rooms are rarely near city entrances and defensible positions anyways.

Hopefully, the destruction of those rooms will force Cities to capitulate at some point, making it possible to force an enemy to accept terms, rather than affording them the option of simply waiting it out forever, without having to hardcore the winning scenario conditions. Middle of the road!

Also, reduce the amount of guards available, or perhaps the amount of guards you can replace in any given period of time, during times of war, to account for the increased burden placed on Cities by their enemies.

Edit: Couple little changes.

Kyrra

Apart from the council room, the rest of those are easily accessible in other cities.

If shops are going to be eligible to be destroyed, shop owners and leasees should be compensated by either reduced taxes or a refund of taxes for the amount of time their shops are not accessible and able to provide business.

It matters a great deal to people on periodical leases and pay for the privilege of running a shop for X amount of time.