Siege valor is too rare compared to Battle

[Phew]

Last night we actually had 50+ people on NA2 for the first time in ages. I played for two hours, and I think I only saw one valor award. It wasn't uncommon to earn 75+ points a round and not even sniff valor.

The reason for this is simple; respawns mean that even poor players are alive and earning at least proximity points for the entire round. So the average is way higher, just because everyone is alive and earning points the whole round. Meanwhile, Battle gives out valor like candy; I've had rounds where my only contribution was killing a single DONKEY and I've gotten valor.

For the record, I think the multiplier/valor system is horribly flawed, especially for the siege game mode. I think gold/XP rewards should be solely tied to contributing to your team in proximity to the map objectives. However, if we are going to stick with this flawed system, it should at least result in similar XP/gold accrual rates in both Battle and Siege. I love the siege game mode, but the server is always empty because every other mode is faster XP.

[Moncho]

Strange, in EU there regularly are 2-5 people getting valour in siege, sometimes up to 7-8 people.

[Phew]

Strange, in EU there regularly are 2-5 people getting valour in siege, sometimes up to 7-8 people.

Either you have more skill spread in EU, or you have more AFKers bringing down the average. Last night it was mostly the two big NA clans (MB and KUTT) and a smattering of mostly skilled randoms. I didn't notice AFKs or a lot of peasants.

[San]

I agree, tweaking valour and other such aspects to fit siege is a good idea.

The current issue I find myself having when thinking about siege is that avoiding combat is often one of the best strategies, so how do you reward good team play for actually defending/going after the flag and not just TDM? I don't think multi by itself is enough, really.

[Phew]

I agree, tweaking valour and other such aspects to fit siege is a good idea.

The current issue I find myself having when thinking about siege is that avoiding combat is often one of the best strategies, so how do you reward good team play for actually defending/going after the flag and not just TDM? I don't think multi by itself is enough, really.

Most siege maps are clearly designed to have progressive choke points (ladder/ramp, then gate house, then flag, for instance), so you can't punish defenders if they effectively hold the first choke point. An score offset bonus for fighting within a certain radius of the flag seems like it would be do-able, and would at least reward people for fighting there.

I personally don't care about the actual rewards in siege (I'l probably never gain another level), I just want the server to be populated because I enjoy playing it. I feel like the main things that kill NA2 are:
1. Less XP/Gold accrual rate than Battle or DTV
2. Bad maps that clear the server
3. High repairs and no multi when <8 players so no one wants to help populate the server when it's empty
Fix at least 2 of those problems, and NA2 will come back from the dead.

[Soldier_of_God]

Meh, valor makes no sense for siege. it should go back to something more like the original crpg, where you get xp when huddled together, and get gold for each kill.

[MURDERTRON]

Just turn it into TDM.

[korppis]

I agree, tweaking valour and other such aspects to fit siege is a good idea.

The current issue I find myself having when thinking about siege is that avoiding combat is often one of the best strategies, so how do you reward good team play for actually defending/going after the flag and not just TDM? I don't think multi by itself is enough, really.

Well you could give little bonus score for opening/closing gates, pushing siege tower and breaking doors. I doubt it would sway valour chances much, but maybe it would at least drive more people towards doing objectives.

[Tojo]

Most siege maps are clearly designed to have progressive choke points (ladder/ramp, then gate house, then flag, for instance), so you can't punish defenders if they effectively hold the first choke point. An score offset bonus for fighting within a certain radius of the flag seems like it would be do-able, and would at least reward people for fighting there.

I personally don't care about the actual rewards in siege (I'l probably never gain another level), I just want the server to be populated because I enjoy playing it. I feel like the main things that kill NA2 are:
1. Less XP/Gold accrual rate than Battle or DTV
2. Bad maps that clear the server
3. High repairs and no multi when <8 players so no one wants to help populate the server when it's empty
Fix at least 2 of those problems, and NA2 will come back from the dead.

Just want to remind you guys that when Elindor was working Fips to remove the bad siege maps. There was a poll added so people could vote on what maps to remove. I along with Elindor and others went through the whole siege map rotation and removed the bad maps. Siege was awesome for about 3 weeks until Fips decided to re add all the maps...

So yea just blame Fips

[Phew]

Just want to remind you guys that when Elindor was working Fips to remove the bad siege maps. There was a poll added so people could vote on what maps to remove. I along with Elindor and others went through the whole siege map rotation and removed the bad maps. Siege was awesome for about 3 weeks until Fips decided to re add all the maps...

So yea just blame Fips

Yeah, we had the ideal siege rotation during that brief time; just the smallish maps that actually worked for NA population levels. I think it was just a psychology experiment to give NA2 players a glimmer of hope that EU devs/admins actually give a sh!t about us, only to subsequently snatch it away.

[San]

The more I think about it, the more confusing it becomes for how well explicitly rewarding gates/ladders/proper offense/defense would work.

I think these three changes might be a small step towards rewards without being any significant amounts of work:
-Winning gives +2 multi, max 5. Giving points for every little thing in siege is tedious. Working together and getting your team to win should be a more powerful reward. It's difficult to win consistently compared to battle without a heavy banner stack.
-Fighting near a flag gives x2 points (any flag, siege, battle, etc). This helps equalize the tradeoffs for defending the flag vs. the front. This also gives the attack side more incentives to bring the fight towards the flag.
-Multi starts with a minimum 4 people instead of 8. Siege is in desperate need of a jump start for NA.

[Phew]

I think these three changes might be a small step towards rewards without being any significant amounts of work:
-Winning gives +2 multi, max 5. Giving points for every little thing in siege is tedious. Working together and getting your team to win should be a more powerful reward. It's difficult to win consistently compared to battle without a heavy banner stack.
-Fighting near a flag gives x2 points (any flag, siege, battle, etc). This helps equalize the tradeoffs for defending the flag vs. the front. This also gives the attack side more incentives to bring the fight towards the flag.
-Multi starts with a minimum 4 people instead of 8. Siege is in desperate need of a jump start for NA.

The above combined with taking the crappy maps out of the rotation (again) would definitely save NA2.

San's ingame title should get changed to: San, Champion of Downtrodden Siegebros.

[San]

Proposing stuff isn't going to do much. One would have to bug people like Tydeus until he's annoyed enough to allow the change =)

Used to play siege a lot in 2011, but ever since valour came about, the xp/gold rate is much faster in battle for those who can get it.

[Tojo]

Used to play siege a lot in 2011, but ever since valour came about, the xp/gold rate is much faster in battle for those who can get it.

dat subtle, e-peen stroke lol

could the suggestion coming from San have more weight in the situation?

[San]

In that case it wasn't intended to be e-peen. Valour didn't used to be about performance when it was first introduced at all. You just had to survive until the end and get in a few hits. Every future change just made it easier.

I spoke with him about the 8->4 population requirement for multi on irc and the points near the flag and seemed to have some hesitations about adding such changes. The extra multi for a win I'm not entirely confident about myself admittedly. I just know that 1-5 multi for siege isn't so great when valour isn't as reliable *compared to battle.* This didn't used to be much of an issue back in 2011-2012 for instance.

Is it possible to provide a 2x point multiplier for fighting within the vicinity of a flag for battle and siege (and possibly conquest)? Does this also sound like a decent idea to you based on points' current design?

Initially I had the intentions of doing something along the lines of this (as seen on page one), but as I argued, I became less and less confident in doing so. I think if you're rewarding for objectives, you really have to be careful with how you do it, at least for siege and conquest.

I also agree that some of these artificial changes aren't the best, but I think that they would help NA siege's sustainability and are easy to do.