Author Topic: Sieges aren't fun  (Read 2391 times)

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Offline Rextard

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Sieges aren't fun
« on: January 16, 2011, 09:06:41 pm »
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There are too many little things which for me, make sieges more annoying than fun...here are the worst of them. (I play N.A. servers, the EU ones always boot me.)

On defense:
 -Ladders are often impossibly hard to target long enough to throw back down (especially if people have died at the top of ladder point) and you seem to be unable to do so if someone is on the ladder. This makes zero sense considering that opponents can lounge about and engage in all forms of combat on them. And if this is intentional, ie for the reason that someone's on the ladder applying force to push it down, well anyone with a sword has a lever that would be sufficient to push the ladder off the wall.

 -Respawn rate is broken: 11x longer than the other team is too long. The attacking team already gets extra time if they have people near the flag when the timer runs out, so this just piles on insult to ridiculousness. I played one round where my team had defended the flag for almost a minute after the timer was at 0, and the attackers still got the win, because they could just keep trickling in and preventing our win.
 
-Fall damage. Given the 33 sec respawn rate, a huuuge hazard for defenders. If the attackers take fall damage, it doesn't matter. They only have to wait 3 secs to get another life if the fall ruined a fight or straight up killed them.
 
     In combination these cause more grief than enjoyment. Defenders shouldn't be punished for pushing the enemy back in wall mounting instances, but in emergence they are. For every killed ally the whole team suffers, because the attackers can keep spamming that ladder, while pockets of your team struggle not to get overrun by near-constantly superior numbers. Half the time you run back after a respawn and end up seeing your allies get cut down before you can help. Guess what happens next? You're outnumbered, and are prolly gonna die in a couple seconds, and have to wait another 33 seconds just to get the chance to die some more. Seriously, this adds up to attackers getting minutes more playtime per round than defenders. To me it's too much punishment on top of the difficulty of defending, and leaves no incentive to choose to be a defender.

On attack: The above problems apply again. You needn't be all that creative in your approaches and strategy. It can be ridiculously quick and easy to win if your team wins even half of the first fights: by the time the defense recovers your team has either swarmed the flag and won, or forced the defense to abandon the walls and defend the flag for the rest of the round. Basically the attackers don't have to be very organized, whereas the defenders have to be very organized, and hope on a prayer it'll be enough.

Obviously not all rounds of siege end up being unbalanced, but it feels like they could be more fun overall if the challenge that each team faces was more equal. It's just not supposed to be easy to take a castle, yet I see attackers winning way more than defenders, and often without any use of the big rolling war-tower thing.

Just my thoughts, thanks for reading.

Offline rustyspoon

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2011, 09:14:36 pm »
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It sounds like you were playing when there was a low population on the server. A lot of the maps become more skewed towards defenders when there's a higher population on the server.

Honestly siege is a lot better now than it was before the patch. If those changes were made it would become WAY to easy for defenders to win. Siege is fine the way it is now (except for the broken deployable ladders). I feel any problems with siege now are due to poor map design. Some of those maps on NA are too far skewed to either attacks or defenders.
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Offline Helrekkr

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2011, 09:30:50 pm »
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I think the most important change that has to be made to siege is an adjustment to the autobalance.

Right now, even if I am on a team that does great and I win, half the team will get switched around EVERY ROUND (unlike battle where it's only the first round).
This means that more often than not I end up getting a 1x -> 2x -> 1x -> 2x ... streak which is a lot worse than going 1x -> 1x -> 2x -> 3x -> 4x -> 5x .. in battle.

Offline rustyspoon

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2011, 09:41:23 pm »
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I think the most important change that has to be made to siege is an adjustment to the autobalance.

I agree with this. I know it's original intention was to stop 1 side from dominating in siege, but I think the switching every round went a little overboard.
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Offline Rextard

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2011, 10:24:34 pm »
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If 20-30 players is low, then yes. However, it's that low for a significant amount of time throughout the day. Maybe the respawn time for defenders could thus be scaled to the amount of people on the server?

Offline zagibu

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2011, 10:27:15 pm »
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I agree that the "time's up, flag's not down yet" situation needs a fix. I suggest to limit the time attackers have to still win after time has run out to 10-20 seconds.
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Offline rustyspoon

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2011, 10:47:15 pm »
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If 20-30 players is low, then yes. However, it's that low for a significant amount of time throughout the day. Maybe the respawn time for defenders could thus be scaled to the amount of people on the server?

That's a good idea. +1
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Offline Paprik

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2011, 12:46:14 am »
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I agree that the "time's up, flag's not down yet" situation needs a fix. I suggest to limit the time attackers have to still win after time has run out to 10-20 seconds.

I feel this feature should be removed completely. It doesn't make any sense. Why would there be ANY time limit in the first place? Either capture the castle in X:XX or you lost. That's it.

Giving someone infinitely more time just because he has dude standing there is retarded. That's like giving defenders infinite time to recapture just because they are inside the castle :D

Also +1 to the defender respawn scaling. So many sieges are ending up 3:0 with attackers winning that it makes me wanna kill a baby seal.

Offline zagibu

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2011, 03:36:33 am »
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Yeah, I guess you could remove it totally.
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Offline Mala

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2011, 05:03:06 am »
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...

Honestly siege is a lot better now than it was before the patch. ...

For me sieges are too hectic now but the old siege mode does not work with the new XP system.
The only issue i have are the broken ladders as attacker. It is hard to bypass all the blocked paths with them.

Offline Diomedes

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #10 on: January 17, 2011, 06:11:46 am »
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There needs to be a "FLAG" call that nobody can ignore.  It's frustrating when nobody follows perfectly sound strategy then assumes everyone else will do what actually needs doing.

+1 more argument for a leadership/command system

Offline Rextard

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #11 on: January 17, 2011, 07:39:39 am »
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       Today I played about 9-10 rounds of siege with 50-65 people throughout, and defenders won once or twice. The problem is that the disparity in respawn times allows the attackers to fight with levels of abandon that the defenders can nowhere near afford. Attackers have only to run headlong and keep swinging. Seriously, just about every fight,  half the defending team is dead in rotation for most of the battle, and nearly all of the attackers are almost always alive and free to keep fighting with abandon

     The broken aspects of 2handed weapons are exasperating the problem. As it now stands, 2handers do way more damage, have better range, and almost all attack faster than a 1hander. One problem is the attack speed. Why? It's a heavier weapon, and it ties up both hands. A 1hander with shield should be able to set a block and an attack simultaneously, but the game ignores this reality. If a 2hand weapon hits a shield, it's instantly ready to attack again. It doesn't get deflected away, it doesn't open the 2hand fighter up to getting hit. It penalizes the 1hander with shield for having the shield, because there's a lag in having to raise/lower the shield when you want to attack.
   
     This is what hips are for. What a shield user would really aim to do is turn and push into the block to expose the opponent for a strike with one turn of the hips. That two arms could be used independently at the same time doesn't seem to be represented. It often forces the shield and 1hand fighter to basically use both those things like a 2hand weapon, one at a time, without the range or damage or lack of shield lag.

     2handers can pop into a crowd, swing like nuts, and rack up easy kills. Such weapons should get you killed inside the range of a one handed weapon exactly because their greater length makes them more unwieldy in tight quarters, not better and faster. If they can kill in one hit through armor, bone, and everything else, they ought to have a chance of getting stuck in their kills. They require much bigger swing arcs so swinging through a wall or down into the floor a bit on a leg strike ought to cause undesired deflection. You can see it best with polearms: half the haft will go through the model of the wielder or more often something else with some attacks, and it doesn't cause any collision problem, it doesn't nullify the attack, its treated as acceptable.
   
   
     Anyway I think the respawn timers would be better at 30 and 5 seconds for defenders and attackers respectively. I have little faith much will change about the weapon thing.

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Offline Dwarden

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #12 on: January 17, 2011, 02:23:34 pm »
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what siege needs is warning sound when flag start going down ...

e.g. ring the bell or metal on metal ringing alarm (medieval style used on fortresses)

also the voice control there is really missing "Enemy at flag!" one :)

siege w/o life limit on defenders is bearable ... sure attackers got faster respawn but usually (not always) longer route to flag ...

again on some maps i noticed i spawn +40s (really , running w/o ladder) from walls which IMO is bit absurd considering 5-6m round limit
« Last Edit: January 17, 2011, 02:25:08 pm by Dwarden »

Offline Paprik

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #13 on: January 17, 2011, 04:22:26 pm »
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sure attackers got faster respawn but usually (not always) longer route to flag ...

The thing is they have an insane advantage even if the route takes exactly the same time as the defender respawn. While attackers spawn at safe positions, half of the defenders spawn at places where they get instagangbanged by several attackers.

Offline Rextard

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Re: Sieges aren't fun
« Reply #14 on: January 18, 2011, 07:09:49 am »
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The thing is they have an insane advantage even if the route takes exactly the same time as the defender respawn. While attackers spawn at safe positions, half of the defenders spawn at places where they get instagangbanged by several attackers.

Yeah it's really annoying having to wait for minutes at a time because you get spawned right next to multiple enemies, and are half dead before you have your bearings. Once the attackers are in the castle the defense should have a better respawn rate. There aren't many good battles for the flag, usually once the wall defense is broken the flag goes pretty quick because so much of the defending team is waiting to respawn.