Raiding Mechanics

Khel

Speaking as someone who doesn't play but was a massive xp leech when he did, I think assist xp would go a long way in encouraging defenders. Shove that level 60 into defense and he can hold down web tattoo to hinder and gain 5 levels.

I like the idea of stages of a raid too, that sounds fun, but adding buffs to defenders based on kills/deaths might help too. People play Achaea in part to pk and so raid defenders are bringing in bottom line for IRE, may as well share some of that in the form of a buff. Defender deaths/kills (kills more than deaths) provide patriotism points that you can trade in for buffs ie 50 patriot points turns to +5% to gold drops for the RL day. Have the points fade after 3 RL days or some short span so it rewards those who played and even if the city is blown to pieces by 100 raids back to back in those three days they can cash in some points for trying and get morale back.

Alrena

Krypton said:

Alrena said:

If Defenders get a set number of kills, the city fortifies defenses and prevent the enemy city from raiding for an hour or two. That gives defenders a reason to attack pre-sanction, as wiping out the enemy group once or twice means two hours of peace. It's a clear win condition.

How would a peace condition get enforced? Mechanically a timer could deny raiders being able to establish sanction, but they can still come back in and fight for as long as they want, just without a tank objective.

In essence, it doesn't matter at that point. That's no different than border skirmishing relentlessly or going on a defilement spree instead.

But if we want to avoid sore-loser guardbashing/uprooting, you could activate the archer defenses that damage every tick against every city enemy within the city for one hour, increasing in damage the longer they're inside. After one hour, the defenses stop, even if the raid cooldown from city X is still up, to give city Y a chance, perhaps. Maximum security with archer defenses and raid defense could last 1 hour, after which perhaps one more hour of anti-sanction against the city that tried to sanction, without stopping other cities from doing so.

Jarrod

Krypton said:

Alrena said:

If Defenders get a set number of kills, the city fortifies defenses and prevent the enemy city from raiding for an hour or two. That gives defenders a reason to attack pre-sanction, as wiping out the enemy group once or twice means two hours of peace. It's a clear win condition.

How would a peace condition get enforced? Mechanically a timer could deny raiders being able to establish sanction, but they can still come back in and fight for as long as they want, just without a tank objective.

If you enter the city that you 'lost' to too soon your health deteriorates and cannot rise above X% while within X rooms of the city. You don't reduce max so this way they get 1-shot by damage (even % damage).

Rangor

Constables are too strong. Need more counters or to be changed.

Xaden

Rangor said:

Constables are too strong. Need more counters or to be changed.

If you max out 5 constables responding to a CFH then they're not all that strong. They're the weakest guard type as it is, I think.

Cailin

Jarrod said:

Krypton said:

Alrena said:

If Defenders get a set number of kills, the city fortifies defenses and prevent the enemy city from raiding for an hour or two. That gives defenders a reason to attack pre-sanction, as wiping out the enemy group once or twice means two hours of peace. It's a clear win condition.

How would a peace condition get enforced? Mechanically a timer could deny raiders being able to establish sanction, but they can still come back in and fight for as long as they want, just without a tank objective.

If you enter the city that you 'lost' to too soon your health deteriorates and cannot rise above X% while within X rooms of the city. You don't reduce max so this way they get 1-shot by damage (even % damage).

Well, or perhaps there is a new passive font power like the one that was mentioned (granting xp or increased criticals to defenders) that raises a magic wall around the city, so that citizens of the losing raiders' team can't enter. (Or immediately knocks out 50% health when they step through. ) Idk, just a random idea.

But I think the peace idea is really good.

Ryldagh

Reyson said:

A system wherein the attackers start a timer in which the tank charges would be nice. It'd be broadcast all over the area, nice and clear, when it starts and when it closes.

A window, of, for instance, 5 minutes, during which time a standard tank charges, let's say, 50% of the way. During that time, kills feed the tank more than it currently does, for the attackers, and defenders have an incentive to attack, because if they don't, they're halfway to a tank for free.

Limited amount of these windows, let's say, 3 per tank. That makes it so that successfully wiping the raiders during these windows is an effective defence to kill passive ticking on a tank window is pretty solid defence. 

Now I'm stupid new to the raiding scene, but isn't this when they'd just disarm and capture the tank?

Rangor

Xaden said:

Rangor said:

Constables are too strong. Need more counters or to be changed.

If you max out 5 constables responding to a CFH then they're not all that strong. They're the weakest guard type as it is, I think.

That's why you bring in 10.

And on eu timezone raid sizes. 5 is usually plenty.

Caelan

You know what grinds my gears?

Because I often get seperated from the group, I dont get credit for the damn tank disarm despite assisting the entire raid.

Other than that, just enjoying the discussion. Some good ideas going

Reyson

Ryldagh said:

Reyson said:

A system wherein the attackers start a timer in which the tank charges would be nice. It'd be broadcast all over the area, nice and clear, when it starts and when it closes.

A window, of, for instance, 5 minutes, during which time a standard tank charges, let's say, 50% of the way. During that time, kills feed the tank more than it currently does, for the attackers, and defenders have an incentive to attack, because if they don't, they're halfway to a tank for free.

Limited amount of these windows, let's say, 3 per tank. That makes it so that successfully wiping the raiders during these windows is an effective defence to kill passive ticking on a tank window is pretty solid defence. 

Now I'm stupid new to the raiding scene, but isn't this when they'd just disarm and capture the tank?

Sure. My point though, is to cut out the ambiguity in a raid wherein charging a tank can last a couple minutes with a big rush that fails, or the better part of an hour just standing around. By announcing a short period wherein the tank is charging, it gives defenders a defined moment in which to concentrate their efforts, rather than the current model, which, if you're willing to engage but don't have the strength to uproot entrenched defenders, basically boils down to standing around til more people become available. 

The idea is centered around making the progression of a tank a more active rather than passive activity, and cutting down on how badly one-sided raids tend to drag on and on. 

Nazihk

Alrena said:

If Defenders get a set number of kills, the city fortifies defenses and prevent the enemy city from raiding for an hour or two.

The thing about this kind of thing is that it will just discourage me from ever bringing anybody new or lower leveled or no/low-artifacted.

I'm never going to bring somebody like Mezghar or Shanei along to a raid if something like this gets put into play because this kind of thing entirely changes the goal of defenders. It's no longer about killing the raiders or removing them from the city, it's about smashing that set number of squishy targets so that the attackers have to retreat. As such, it makes the most sense to just not let people get involved.

Admittedly, this is also a problem with getting sanctions currently, but if it has to swing in favor of one side I prefer it to swing in favor of the side that's starting a conflict as opposed to the side that's closing one. 

Kiet

If you wanna bring newbier combatants, you can border skirmish or defile or whatever else, though.


The fact that this would encourage you to not just bring your entire CWHO would be a good thing, imo.

Also, it's ironic to say the defenders have to just 'learn to lose' but the offending team has to be given all the concessions, too.


Considering raids already favor the offensive team for having the right numbers/composition and deciding the time to strike, in addition to giving the offensive team the entrenched defender advantage, I see really no reason to cater to the offensive team more.

Atalkez

Limiting actual raiding to your core group is a terrible idea.

Farrah

Raids already favor defense more than offense. That's why it's always the dominant city on offense. Font and guards are very powerful defensive tools, compared to the advantage of entrenchment. Totems too, to an extent, and orb of confinement, and inability to get back into the city after leaving (depending on whether you have earrings or an ability to do so or not).

Obviously, a lot of people frown on guard use, but unless it's removed as an option it still has to be considered.

Nazihk

Pff. It wouldn't discourage me from bringing the wagonload of artifact whales that we have, just like it wouldn't discourage Ashtan from bringing in their wagonload of artifact whales. All it would do is make me tell little people they can't play, I could still swarm you under with a dozen whales.

And personally, I'd rather find a way to resolve it that doesn't just depend on a set number of kills. Maybe change up the army ranks, or base it off of city rank/position, etc. Something other than 'get the easiest 6 kills you can get'.

Kiet

Having a way to account for the value of people would be ideal, but every method that's been suggested in the past doesn't work. Might? You're counting the person with like 8 trade skills as more than an experienced apostate alt. Army rank? You just never promote anyone in your army (like most cities already do) and you're set for life. City rank is meh because there's plenty of CR6's that fight worse than CR1's, you can't tell me you're less valuable a target than half your high ranking citizens.

Retire/escrow value would maybe be most accurate but that's kind of messy.


re: offense vs defence, assuming an equal group and no guards (big if, obv), the entrenched group is gonna win most of the time. Most of the advantages the defending city gets don't matter if they have to get through 5 rooms of ret onto a propped totem (before quake runs out) and fully stacked rooms. Font is the biggest shifter, obv, but who wants to sit around for 30 minutes for it to start making a noticeable impact?

This, when combined with the offensive team having the pick of when the engagement starts gives a pretty solid advantage to the raiding team until font stacks are high or guards are used.

It's easy enough to see that disarmed tanks are a lot rarer than blown tanks. Obviously, this is because raiders don't have to place a tank if they're not going to win--but that also means every tank fight is gonna be in the raider's favor by default.

If we took out the whole picking when to raid part then the balance shifts. But as long as the offending team can choose to raid when numbers are most favorable, it remains their advantage from a meta standpoint.

Shirszae

Make it so that the tank has to be set down for people to gain sanction?

Calira

Some way to deal with earrings into the city would go a long way to help defenders fight against superior odds

Mathilda

That'd be a nice city improvement idea! Prevents 'magical' movement into/out of the city (portals, earring, rift, etc.), like how Orb stops flight.

Please don't use silver though.

Atalkez

Not a fan of a hard counter to a 800 credit artifact. Maybe something that drastically increases the balance to earring into an enemy city, while the improvement is active.

Kiet

It's only a hard counter while in an enemy city and it could be a temporary thing or only work under sanctions or whatever else. Earrings still have plenty of other uses, just like wings.

Atalkez

Talisman of Binidng, rip

Xaden

If it stopped people who weren't in at the time of sanction then maybe. But not people who had to gtfo from radiance or whatever. I think we've moved from the realms of encouraging defence to discouraging offence.

Sobriquet

Radiance I still think is pretty dumb. Sit very safely away from the action and kill pretty much anyone who's not put lessons into mini skill, and those with no viable way of getting out (especially with orb). 

It has its uses to get people away from their main groups of course, but I still think there should be a smaller range of use for it. 

Xaden

Would prefer radiance only working within choke or maybe thurisaz range (i.e. Not LoS but not areawide) or something like that so that even if they're sitting mono'd on guards then you only gotta move into LoS range to try kill them before they kill you.

Atalkez

That limitation should work for all things, imo. Telepathy, displace, etc. Anything actually offensive should required to be in a certain range that’s actually risky, not something that can be done from complete safety.

Taryius

I think displace falls more in line with brazier, area wide but easily prevented with a mono.

Nazihk

Xaden said:

If it stopped people who weren't in at the time of sanction then maybe. But not people who had to gtfo from radiance or whatever. I think we've moved from the realms of encouraging defence to discouraging offence.

I feel like it's sort of going this way too.

Of course the offensive side has the advantage in a raid. They pick the location and the time and take the initiative, and that's a huge advantage because they usually get the chance to set up before anybody can respond. This is unavoidable unless you do things like "You have to attack this room, and you have to give them warning, and then you have to assault the defender's prepared position", which is rather ludicrous as a raiding system.

That advantage is why the defenders have things like guards and the font. I'd much rather see an expansion of the font system to help defenders actively repel raiders than a system that works to prevent raiders from even getting their foot in the door. Defensive bonuses for citizens, offensive bonuses for citizens, utility things like a city-binding or earring blockade, damage penalties on the raiders, etc. 

I really feel like buffing active defense will be a better solution than either nerfing offense or buffing passive defense. 

Atalkez

Taryius said:

I think displace falls more in line with brazier, area wide but easily prevented with a mono.

Disagree, since there is no windup to displace. To brazier, you have to strip cloak somehow, which in and of itself allows defensive options, since that requires teamwork offensively to achieve.

You can’t really sit in a guard room and just spam brazier effectively. You can do so with displace, since you only need it to start. Dropping a monolith during sequence doesn’t stop it, and afaik you can spam through the monolith to ensure even if it’s picked up for a fraction of a second you get a displace initiation (I could be wrong here but I don’t think I am).

Not quite the same.

Kiet

I mean the windup is the message. Displace isn't really a threat as long as you're remotely prepared, whereas radiance is a huge pita.