Howdee!
With around 30 hours played in Siege mode in cRPG (most common nick: Kaede_Nagawara), I'm still quite a beginner. However, I managed to see what siege mode was, what it was not, and what it should be (IMO). I'll explain how, just read below!
I. What Siege is:Roughly, a short battle with an unidentified goal. Unidentified? Yes, because it's mostly a team deathmatch, and no one really cares about the flag. There is no goal such as "break inside the castle", because castle is already quite opened at the beginning of a round. Weak doors, low walls... Doors opened by anyone, anytime. If you ever played Siege cleverly, then you certainly noticed that defenders do not care too much about the flag. Teamplay (outside of fights) is almost nowhere. The only time in a Siege where you CAN have some teamplay is when you protect a teammate that is breaking a door. Outside of this particular situation, it is not needed.
II. What Siege should be (still IMO):A long battle, with different steps clearly identified:
1) Battle on the walls: this is all about preventing the enemy from stepping on the wall and inside the city. Right now, this is a step that lasts maximum 30 seconds. In a siege, it should be way longer, right? I mean, right now it is not a step, just a, err, a detail. Entering the enemy castle it not a problem at all! Well, it should be a big problem, right?
2) Battle in the castle: When the enemy has stepped on the walls/broke the doors and you can't prevent him to come in the city, you struggle in the city itself to slow him down.
3) Battle near the flag: Last hope of the defenders, this last step is commonly known as "CAMP FLAAAAAAAAAAAG!!!!11". This is where you bravely hold your line in front of the enemy rushing through the city!
Right now, it's like this: Step 1 (if at all) is lasting 30 seconds, step 2 20 seconds, step 3 can be longer, but is not often. The rest of the time, a "siege" round is something between all these steps, with no attacks, push backs, retreats or anything, just... Hell, I spawned here, gotta kill the nearest enemy! Not only there are no real "steps" (one ladder on the wall and it's over for step 1), but what is instead is just indescribable.
I'd like Siege to be a long battle, with heroic actions, enemies counter-attacking and retreating, and unbreakable castles. How? Let's read further!
III. How can we do that?So this is where the suggestions really come.
These are small changes easily doable, I'm not suggesting a huge overhaul of the game!
a) Extend time for a round from ~5 minutes to ~15 minutes (or even 20, hell yeah! Depending on the castle, ofc.)
b) Reduce ladders health drastically. In every round there is a siege tower anyway. A successful ladder is a unseen ladder. (Or else, you're flooded with them).
c) Don't allow defenders to open the main castle doors.
d) Increase a bit main doors' health.
e) Increase time needed to open a door (not close it) a lot! It's not just a matter of opening it, these are protected doors damnit!
f) Increase time needed to open a door with the chain handle a lot!
g) If possible, change spawn points so that defenders first spawn on the walls, then when flag went down once, they spawn all around the city (and thus near the flag).
h) Reduce time needed to drop a ladder.
If we're granted all these things, we shall have a decent - and real - siege mode. Hurray!
For further reading, I found
this interesting topic. I don't think, however, spawn delay should be modified.
Post-scriptum: sorry for my not-always-correct English. I'm not an English native!
