Bring Back Siege "Manual" Ladders

[RamsesXXIIX]

Do tell what's better than guarding the flag in siege. You know, the victory objective, the thing that decides win and defeat?

Stopping the enemy at chokepoints? While leaving a few guards at the flag ofc.

The area around the flag is open ground, which doesn't give any benefits. A chokepoint gives an advantage in combat.

[LordBerenger]

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Im dissapoint son...

I'm not trolling...   I'm serious. It was epic! Besides archers following up Also why u use MARK HENRY GIF!?

[Tzar]

Also why u use MARK HENRY GIF!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesture

[Rhekimos]

Stopping the enemy at chokepoints? While leaving a few guards at the flag ofc.

The area around the flag is open ground, which doesn't give any benefits. A chokepoint gives an advantage in combat.

Choke points provide an advantage for the side with fewer numbers. But if there a big number of defenders at the flag, the attackers will most likely be few against many in semi open ground, and the defense has the advantage again. Unless, of course, the defenders are already dead, when their choke points were overrun.

[MarktpLatz]

You assume that I'm talking about inaccessible locations, which I'm not. I was referring to the "highways" that were often constructed on maps to reduce the spawn-to-flag distance, overwhelming the defenders. Manual ladders simply broke a lot of maps that would have otherwise been good.

Well, I have to agree to this. Creating "highways" may have been funny and profitable for us (sweet perma-x5-times  ) but its totally unfair for the defenders, even though a well-organized defender teamplay could be able to stop/destroy these "highways".

I like Ozins suggestion for siege 2.0

I am quite sure that I'll disable the manual ladders by default. Maybe let the map makers able to enable them if they so wish. Some variety couldn't hurt.

Why don´t handle it the same way for siege?
There are some maps, which are giving many opportunities to bypass the defense in a unfair way, but there are also maps, which don´t!
So why not giving the ability to enable ladders for a few maps (maps without ability to create "highways")?

[Angantyr]

Some variety couldn't hurt.

[dodnet]

Bring back ladders in battle mode too. Beside the roofmonkeys with bows it was fun.

[Teeth]

Bring back ladders in battle mode too. Beside the roofmonkeys with bows it was fun.

You must have the memory of a goldfish.

[Torak]

I see some of you complain about the castles were to easy to take with ladders. Well maybe make maps that are not in nativ style? make them harder to take so you cant just bypass al the choke points, if you make a siege map you maybe must take the ladders in to your calculation

[dodnet]

You must have the memory of a goldfish.

Blubb!

[Rhekimos]

So anyone who plays siege has been on defense and cursed the spawnpoints (me included) especially when they spawn away from the flag when its contested.

When I started making maps, I found out why this happens, so I thought I'd share...

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HOW SPAWNS WORK IN SIEGE MODE
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When a mapper makes a map they place defense spawn points (entry points 0-31) throughout the castle where they want defenders to spawn.
However, which spawn is chosen by the system is not random nor proximity to flag, its based around a couple parameters:

Here are the parameters:
- Proximity to Entry Point 0 (what I call Defense Center)
- Proximity from attackers (it wants to spawn you AWAY from enemies)
- Proximity to other defenders (it wants to spawn you CLOSE to other allies)
(listed order is the weight order of the parameters)

Here's what this means.
When attackers get in and get close to the flag, the system is going to try to spawn you (defender) AWAY from those attackers, so EVEN if Entry Point 0 is near the flag, it will likely NOT spawn you near there.

Map makers COULD put ALL the defense spawn points near the flag, thus NOT ALLOWING the system to spawn defenders anywhere else - but have fun with that map, lol.

----

The system uses some thresholds to determine how to follow the parameters and therefore, where to spawn defenders at any given time But these thresholds are not easy to understand or implement exactly - so it becomes a "guess and check" basically for map makers. 

So most map makers do the following:
- Place defense spawns how you think it will be best, put it up on server to "test" (we don't have any other way really to test with many players)
- Watch the results and/or gather feedback (community is so helpful and constructive with this, of course )
- Make small changes (as to not knee jerk react)
- Re-upload
- Watch again...

---------------------

Hope that helps explain why defense spawn points work the way they do.  It was something I was shocked to find out myself.
They are basically a shifting field of spawn possibilities depending on distance from Defense Center and enemy players/allied players.

It is not a bad system necessarily, but unfortunately hard to control.

(NOTE - offense isnt really effected by this, since offense spawns are all clustered around Entry Point 32 (offense center) and defenders are not usually close anyhow.  Even if defense got close, there is no where else to spawn so they would spawn there anyhow)

One more reason for staying near the flag at all times.

Try to defend far from flag. -> You cause allies to spawn far away from flag as well.

[dynamike]

I am quite sure that I'll disable the manual ladders by default. Maybe let the map makers able to enable them if they so wish. Some variety couldn't hurt.

This is a great idea and a valuable compromise!

The map makers would have to deal with a lot of balancing frustrations if ladders were generally allowed, but it gives them the flexibility of choice. And for us it would be different play styles for different maps.

Is this technically doable? If so, then go for it!

[Elindor]

Allowing map makers to enable or disable spawnable ladders is a good idea - if possible.

I also like the idea of a couple ladders at attacker spawn that they can use at their will.

----

Other thing is this.  Right now castles in siege are designed to HAVE defensive flaws (side doors, ladders, alt routes) so that attackers have a chance.  A real castle would not have these so easily.

If spawnable ladders were allowed again, I would just design my castles like real life castles, with no real "attacker routes" for balance. 
Could work.


The problem arises from having maps balanced for no spawnable ladders, and then ADDING spawnable ladders into that equation.
I would still limit the number that can be active at any time though.

[Turboflex]

I see some of you complain about the castles were to easy to take with ladders. Well maybe make maps that are not in nativ style? make them harder to take so you cant just bypass al the choke points, if you make a siege map you maybe must take the ladders in to your calculation

A map designed so that it cannot be bypassed by ladders ends up being a boring map. The anti-ladder design is usually a big hill that attackers have to climb to reach an elevated flagpoint that ladders would be of zero use in reaching.

If you actually want to have an interesting map, where sidedoor/wall climb chokepoints lead to key gatehouse, which when opened creates a major shortcut to flag, player created ladders cannot co-exist because they basically allow players to bypass the chokes and go right into gatehouse (or even past gatehouse, right to flag).

[Mala]

i remember only three maps where a direct way to the flag was possible via a ladder, and on the beach map you can even activate a default ladder to achieve the same effect.