cRPG => General Discussion => Topic started by: Formless on August 24, 2013, 07:10:18 pm
Title: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Formless on August 24, 2013, 07:10:18 pm
Hey guys,
I am a big fan of siege, its pretty much the only game mode I enjoy but for awhile now NA siege hardly ever has more then 26 ppl in it at one time. My question to the community is how do we bring back siege to the high population levels it used to enjoy. Off the top of my head I would suggest a starting xp of 1.5 for siege. What do you guys think?
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Dexxtaa on August 24, 2013, 07:17:21 pm
Put NA1 on different box, DDoS said box.
QED (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D.)
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Fartface on August 24, 2013, 07:23:33 pm
If you give the siege 1.5 x the xp , you will see the entire EU1 server joining that siege :mrgreen:
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Sauce on August 24, 2013, 08:18:59 pm
Get rid of the shit maps, add more of the original maps we grew up on, use the OLD exp system, BRING BACK MOTHERFUCKING OVERTIME, and add a spookisland that constantly berates the peasants. People will be freebasing siege server next to a back-alley abortion clinic dumpster offering filthy blowies just to get a hit.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Taser on August 24, 2013, 08:25:18 pm
Get rid of the shit maps, add more of the original maps we grew up on, use the OLD exp system, BRING BACK MOTHERFUCKING OVERTIME, and add a spookisland that constantly berates the peasants. People will be freebasing siege server next to a back-alley abortion clinic dumpster offering filthy blowies just to get a hit.
Quote
BRING BACK MOTHERFUCKING OVERTIME
Oh fuck yes. Please do dis.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: MURDERTRON on August 24, 2013, 09:05:16 pm
Turn it into TDM
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Elindor on August 24, 2013, 09:07:00 pm
I like everything I've heard so far.
Yeah NA2 needs help...the entire NA population kinda does in fact.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: HungryNBroke on August 24, 2013, 11:15:27 pm
Allow players to throw their own ladders and construct other seige equipment.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Nightmare798 on August 25, 2013, 12:46:59 am
emloy some azns to phley this game...wait dont, i seen one of them beat mario in 10 minutes. azn with plate armor and greatsword would be overkill...
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Nightmare798 on August 25, 2013, 12:47:58 am
STOP SPAMMING LADDERS AND GO FOR FLAG YOU NEWBIE THROWER my old friendGET
every crpg player ever
If every cRPG player went to the flag, I don't think there'd be so much rage about people not going to the flag.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Sir_Wonka on August 25, 2013, 06:21:57 am
About one year ago na2 could pull off like 80ppl a night. Now not even 40. If none of the xp systems or map rotations change one thing na2 could use is a clan to stack it. Seems to help bring more players in when they see some bit of organization
Rip IP rekt tangofoxtwo great job....love waffle
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Clockworkkiller on August 25, 2013, 06:59:59 am
you can still get around 40 players on siege, sometimes, usually later, near midnight, when everyone is home from work
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Xeen on August 25, 2013, 02:03:06 pm
Strat is what really put the fork in siege. It was already a pretty big(and VERY thankless) task to get the server populated. Once strat started rolling, you could just expect the population to utterly disintegrate at least a few times a day, effectively making a consistently decent population all but impossible. It got to the point where a group of my rl friends and I would play at shit population(which I fucking hate, I find battle at any population 10 times more enjoyable than sub-40 siege) for hours, only to finally get 50+ people, a large number of which shit on us "verbally" and whined about losing the whole time. Once Strat started rolling, you could expect an even harder time populating the place only to have almost the entire server stripped away whenever a battle started. The few strat battles I've participated in since I started playing again, I saw so many people that I haven't seen in a regular server since returning. It just seems like there are a ton of strat-only players now.
The game mode is just too dependent on population, both for enjoyment and for map balance. I very seriously wish that the people in control would let us toy with another game mode on NA_2 for a while. I've been saying for a while now that this community needs to give capture the flag a try. I've played it a bit and on the right map it seriously feels like the most balanced mode. I haven't gotten to play the.. search and destroy?.... the thing where you take turns defending a catapult and munitions cart, with a real population yet but it looks like it could be promising. Relatively small, mostly flat maps where cav marauding and agi flag running/harassing gives you a great objective based game where steel monsters don't get to camp the tops of ladders.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Tydeus on August 25, 2013, 02:31:49 pm
I really cant work out why na2 would be dead yet eu2 has 60+ players most of the time i join O.o
Probably has something to do with how the perception of siege as a low-skill game mode is so prolific here. Now why that would be the case for NA but not EU, who knows.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Paul on August 25, 2013, 02:34:36 pm
Siege gates are too small for NA. Also too many stairs and no ramps.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Tydeus on August 25, 2013, 02:38:30 pm
Probably has something to do with how the perception of siege as a low-skill game mode is so prolific here. Now why that would be the case for NA but not EU, who knows.
That was the case at the time of my playing siege. People refused to play siege because of some fear that they'd "unlearn" how to fight/block/whatever
Problem with that perception is that siege and battle teach different things; Siege teaches us how to brawl and how to fight on castle walls etc. It's great Strategus practice if you kind of think about it. I never really worried about the flag and focused on the combat along the walls and in the castle.
Battle tends to be a set of glorified duels where people engage in single combat until the last few people are around to overwhelm the remaining opposition. Every now and then you get some target switchers, but for the most part it's basically the duel server with the off chance of smacking someone else during said matchup.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Xeen on August 25, 2013, 07:02:03 pm
Probably has something to do with how the perception of siege as a low-skill game mode is so prolific here. Now why that would be the case for NA but not EU, who knows.
I actually meant to say that in my post. Siege has a terrible stigma in NA. Aside from the "OMGSKILL" mindset, people are also overly convinced of the modes imbalance. Honestly, I don't believe anything in siege is as broken as prenerf lancercav or critical rangedmass in battle. I've played every class to pretty great effect in siege, you just have to really know your role. Of course people that just want to dive mindlessly into every melee mass are going to get wrecked by huddles of fatass 30 strength 60+ armor players. It's actually kind of crazy how everyone has convinced themselves that ranged and agi is utterly useless and the second they lose a round of siege on said classes, they GTX and hate siege forever all while Adalwulf(an NA player who plays in EU with HRE) literally solos whole teams as a dedicated archer.
Anyways, fuck siege. Like I said, we just don't have the population or interest to get it to the different arbitrary number of players that each map requires to be balanced or fun.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on August 26, 2013, 03:15:28 pm
Get a couple more hundred active NA players in crpg and you might have a chance at repopulating siege. But I think most people are like me and they want to play with as many people (and the best players) as possible. And you'll only find that on the battle server.
Besides that, the obvious problem that has plagued siege since I started crpg over 2.5 years ago is still the same problem: Unbalanced maps. It seems like on any given map, the defenders or attackers always have a major advantage, this is likely due to the static respawn times, rather than having the respawn times dynamically change due to server population.
Also siege has a stigma behind it, that the people who routinely play there can't hang on the battle server against all classes of players. Strength/plate armor crutchers is the stigma that comes to mind when some people think about siege (who are going to get run down by cavalry, or easily targeted by archers due to their slow speed of movement).
I honestly think you'd fix balance issues as well as get more people in the server, if you changed it to a strategus siege type of game play. Set the timer for 15 or 30 or 45 minutes (I really don't care what), defenders and attackers get a fixed amount of tickets they can spawn, and they have flags to defend like in strategus.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Ninja_Khorin on August 26, 2013, 03:25:51 pm
As the late President Roslin once said: "We need to start making babies."
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Tydeus on August 26, 2013, 03:27:32 pm
I honestly think you'd fix balance issues as well as get more people in the server, if you changed it to a strategus siege type of game play. Set the timer for 15 or 30 or 45 minutes (I really don't care what), defenders and attackers get a fixed amount of tickets they can spawn, and they have flags to defend like in strategus.
I wonder how hard this would be, actually. For example, you could take the Captains Mode factions we made, add one more troop type to all of them called "engineer", and just give attackers/defenders x/y troops to spawn with with(could be multiplied by the number of players in the server at the start of the round). It seems like most of the ground work is already there for this. Would be cool to play, but I'm not sure balance would be too much better.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: BlueKnight on August 26, 2013, 03:37:49 pm
"How do we repopulate NA siege?"
Unless you do it with a woman it ain't going to work...
Anyway siege is more fun than battle because there is less ranged and less cav than on battle server (at least in EU), but multi on siege is very unstable as defenders forget that it's the flag that must be defended, not walls. People always want and wanted moar exp and battle is more exp-giving mode + it has other features (your 1 life per round makes it seem more worthy + battle is more prestigious than siege).
It's funny how EU2 always has some players while NA2 remains unpopulated, even though both servers have same modes with same (correct me if I'm wrong) map rotation.
blabla...
Give exp x1.5 to siege at least. It takes years to exp anything that isn't high gen. Leveling on EU5 low lvl character is cool but once you pass lvl 20, leveling is hell boring.
It's probably not the experience issue on EU2 but maybe it'll bring some players to it and people will rediscover siege-fun -> higher amount of players on siege makes shit balanced. Also this overtime was very nice thing we had. Intense flag-fighting till the end is what siege needs (imho).
EDIT: Maybe making respawn time somehow depend on the amout of players on the server could balance the server when the population is low.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Swaggart on August 26, 2013, 04:43:34 pm
My problem with siege has always been, other than the map balance issues people brought up, is that it highly favours heavily armored strength builds. Since you don't need to worry about cavalry, nor do you have to travel far to get to the objective (especially if you're defending), and since the enemies generally come through several choke points, all you need to do is get 30 strength, grab a maul, and go to town above a ladder spamming overheads. While this is perfectly valid strategy, I don't find this fun at all. Battle mode gives you much more options for playing, and more builds are viable.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Dexxtaa on August 26, 2013, 04:47:41 pm
...(and the best players) as possible. And you'll only find that on the battle server.
...Also siege has a stigma behind it, that the people who routinely play there can't hang on the battle server against all classes of players. Strength/plate armor crutchers is the stigma that comes to mind...
* sigh *
This stigma will never be undone regardless of any reality that may be to the contrary. It is unfortunate.
I for one, having watched this over the course of time, have found only minor differences in the average skill levels in siege and battle. - At their current states, battle actually is more likely to have a couple "easy kills". - Siege in its current state is more or less populated only by veterans at this point like Remnant, BQ, Mori, Rustyspoons, etc. - Of course, battle has very good players like Rohy, Chaos, Remnant (they play both), Semenstorm, etc, but I feel because it is now almost the only viable mode due to population that there are probably more peasants, new players, etc in battle than in siege - hence the claim that it often has more "easy kills" than siege. - I play in both, and I feel I often do about the same in either game mode. (I'm generally a player that reaches top of the scoreboard with decent k:d and have an overall k:d of about 2.2:1 in battle - but mind you *I am not saying I am a great player by any means*) - Often I feel the balancer is worse in battle due to the lack of rebalancing that happens, so sometimes it turns into 4 rounds of one team just steamrolling. This happens in siege of course too, but I feel that if you are a good player you can still eek out a decent performance where in battle the stack can be so bad you just end up in a 5v1 each round and to still eek out a good performance is restricted to players like Rohy (and he bitches like crazy about his team sucking in these instances :)) and/or someone that is cav. - Believe it or not, strength crutching is not actually prevalent in siege anymore, in fact often times its overrun by agility players now.
---
Side note here, someone mentioned bring back a clan that clanstacks and that will bring the population back. This is kinda shortsighted idea. Yes, a big clanstack brings in population (mostly their own) and some other players who see the server populated and join. However, it also kills population just as much in that it creates such a badly balanced environment that no one that isnt on the stacked team wants to play for very long.
Repopulating NA2 will take clans of all sizes and individuals as well.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Dexxtaa on August 26, 2013, 06:45:52 pm
Wlindor I read your post and will respond when I get access to a full sized keyboard
But TL;DR I'm going to vouch for admin abilities to change certain dynamics of siege on the fly to maximize fun factor for varying degrees of population density (banner balance, map size, auto balance on/off and other stuff that allows more flexibility for admins to allow a more balanced and fun game at different numbers of combatants like removing doors or that weird as fun new flag mechanic of raising it and allowing overtime and all this other word vomit stuff that I'll give structure and thought to later.
Edit: can you imagine THAT was the TL:DR !?
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Ellie on August 26, 2013, 07:18:24 pm
[EDIT] Oh, thanks Huseby. Yeah Rohy does carry a lot, as do some others. My point is that the battle server's balance can be so bad that only those players are able to do significantly well when on the underpowered team.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on August 26, 2013, 07:45:48 pm
He's suggesting that Rohy does a lot of carrying. I think he just smokes a lot of crack.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Jarold on August 26, 2013, 07:54:05 pm
Doesn't it make more sense to wear more armor on battle then siege. Wait a minute.....does this mean battle has more plate crutchers! In all honesty I encounter more plate on battle then siege. But that may be because of the low player base.
NA siege is harder because most of your fights are 1 v 1 duels and you can't get as many backstabs as in battle. So it's more dependant on player skill instead of clusterfuck lolstab. If you are at the flag area defending against a swarm of attackers then it's like battle.
Battle has good players and siege has good players, you don't notice how many bad players play battle because they are dead most of the time. :P It's more noticeable on siege though because they can respawn.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Turboflex on August 26, 2013, 07:58:49 pm
Siege was on the decline before the multi flag stuff was added and then when it was added but just halfassedly into normal rotation it killed it cuz you would have normal siege and then one of those big 30 minute maps without a rageball style multi system would be added and the 1/2 server on 1x would quit out and siege would die. I don't know if this has been changed or not.
I also don't know if any of the devs are working on siege, but if they are maybe they should just take it down for a couple of months while they overhaul it, then relaunch solely with a setup like Tydeus was talking about, or finish Ozin's battlefield style progression game (with siege gear re-added), and a proper multi system. At least this way the relaunch could make a splash and people would come in and take a new look at it.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Elindor on August 26, 2013, 08:00:53 pm
Turbo, I'm hoping that Paul is able to get the dynamic spawn timers put in soon (I *think* he is working on that).
Jarold....everything about what you said is right.
Doesn't it make more sense to wear more armor on battle then siege. Wait a minute.....does this mean battle has more plate crutchers! In all honesty I encounter more plate on battle then siege. But that may be because of the low player base.
NA siege is harder because most of your fights are 1 v 1 duels and you can't get as many backstabs as in battle. So it's more dependant on player skill instead of clusterfuck lolstab. If you are at the flag area defending against a swarm of attackers then it's like battle.
Battle has good players and siege has good players, you don't notice how many bad players play battle because they are dead most of the time. :P It's more noticeable on siege though because they can respawn.
As you said, I surprisingly find more "1v1, you vs him" situations on siege than I do on battle (especially now that siege is usually like 10v10 at most! LOL). The exception to this is at the end of a battle round the last couple people alive and mostly all the unskilled players are dead (or hiding on the maps edge delayling like assholes).
Battle so often turns into a steamtrain rolling one team or the other - if you're rolling you are just competing with 20 other dudes all trying to lolstab some poor hapless fuck and if you're the one BEING rolled then you are that hapless fuck. Neither one of those resembles the pinnacle of ultraskill prosauce that battle is depicted to be. That being said, there are times when it is rather even and there are GREAT battles of skill and prowess, but there are just as many if not more situations where that does not happen (unless, as stated earlier in this thread, you are a top player who can overcome that, but let's face it, most of us - even those among us that are considered "good players" - cannot to that extent).
Siege of course can turn into the same steamtrain - however, the balancer rebalances (sometimes it helps, sometimes not) every round, and you respawn so if your team is getting steamrolled you can still have multiple chances to do something constructive.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Malaclypse on August 26, 2013, 08:06:39 pm
How do we repopulate NA Siege?
1.) Get more NA players in general- tell your gaming friends about this thing you enjoy, help them out with gold/borrowed heirlooms to make the grind less tedious, encourage them to test builds on an STF etc. Whatever you gotta do- we need more players.
2.) Server Menu > NA 2 > Join server > don't leave
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Paul on August 26, 2013, 08:28:18 pm
I'm not working on anything in cRPG. Community convinced me that this is not wanted. Before that I committed a linear defender spawn timer decrease (capped somewhere) though for below 60 players I think to make defending for low pop servers easier.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on August 26, 2013, 08:32:06 pm
Paul who convinced you to that you were not wanted or needed around here? Seriously...I get that your job is thankless, and that 99.9% of the time that someone talks to you, it's to complain or make a suggestion...but we really do need and appreciate you around here. The vast majority of people don't even post on the forums who play the game, and the vast majority of people on the forums are not unappreciative whiny douche bags (even if there is a very vocal minority who scream very loud).
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Jarold on August 26, 2013, 08:33:35 pm
I'm not working on anything in cRPG. Community convinced me that this is not wanted. Before that I committed a linear defender spawn timer decrease (capped somewhere) though for below 60 players I think to make defending for low pop servers easier.
Well at least you'll go out with a bang since you made one last script and it is for siege. The community will be begging for you back.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Elindor on August 26, 2013, 08:49:07 pm
I'm not working on anything in cRPG. Community convinced me that this is not wanted. Before that I committed a linear defender spawn timer decrease (capped somewhere) though for below 60 players I think to make defending for low pop servers easier.
Wait, so this will be in??? Or you didn't actually get it implemented? Please say it's gonna be in - would be awesome.
Also - Paul I don't know whose posts you've been reading but I think most of the population wants you helping make cRPG the best it can be...especially as one of the most transparent and seemingly active devs.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Tydeus on August 26, 2013, 10:12:27 pm
Wait, so this will be in??? Or you didn't actually get it implemented? Please say it's gonna be in - would be awesome.
Also - Paul I don't know whose posts you've been reading but I think most of the population wants you helping make cRPG the best it can be...especially as one of the most transparent and seemingly active devs.
"Committed" meaning it will be in with the next patch.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Dexxtaa on August 26, 2013, 11:27:29 pm
Right after my girlfriend decided to eat some jalapeno pickles, but before she decided to touch her go-zone (setting it on fire).
/csb
Baby soap, learned from being pepper sprayed. Soft on the eyes, and gentle places while removing the oil, which is what you need to do, since water reactivates it.
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Smoothrich on August 27, 2013, 04:14:09 am
Right after my girlfriend decided to eat some jalapeno pickles, but before she decided to touch her go-zone (setting it on fire).
/csb
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Jarold on August 27, 2013, 07:22:03 am
Well now only one thing remains....
Bring back overtime!!
Seriously it was a super fun harmless mechanic that really helped siege imo. Instead of being like "oh last minute or last 30 seconds i'll just kill myself now and save the enemy the trouble!" With overtime I was like oh man last minute gotta push hard!!!
Title: Re: How do we repopulate NA siege?
Post by: Digglez on August 27, 2013, 08:11:53 am
you mean server that was neglected by admins and mismanaged shit map rotation died off? you dont say!
Revert to gameplay to 6 months ago. Map 5-7 map rotation, with an active admin in charge of updating it. let community pick/test new maps.