FinneyOwnzU wrote:
Edoras wrote:
Are you saying that my problems stem from people not wanting to PK?
correct. this is the problem, if u want to look it at that way, and the symptom is the bounty guards.
I think we simply have different points of view then. I'm not trying to make it more difficult or less difficult to siege a city: I'm trying to make it the -right- kind of difficult, by providing more protection to the central points of a city while removing the blanket city-wide protection of bounty NPCs that spawn en masse every time the attacking force moves. I'd like city PvP to be more about the PCs than the NPCs, yet without making people who choose to spend their time in inns feel exposed.
mundufisen wrote:
In a way this still encourages you to bring an overwhelming amount of people. If you can kill the guards quickly you can rush to the inn and fight. If you don't bring a lot of people it will be a slow walk to the inn and by that time everyone would be gone.
I can understand that point of view, and there's something to be said for the fact that it's all but impossible to code a system that actively punishes people who bring "too many attackers" a la cabal defenders. That said, it's really difficult to draw the line sometimes between giving an advantage to the defenders yet not making it a requirement to bring overwhelming numbers. I would prefer a system that emphasizes
warning the defense over
being the defense. I'd rather the system prioritized the ability for attackers to see you coming, but didn't give them a huge upper hand in the actual defense itself. The current bounty NPC system unfortunately does both, but only sometimes: By having the bounty NPCs deal no damage, but spawn endlessly and take time to kill, there's too much assistance given to the defenders, and in the wrong sorts of ways too.
For what it's worth, I preferred -defending- the city before bounty NPCs were re-introduced many years ago, merely because it seemed that I was more often defending against just a 2 man attack if I was the only peacekeeper.
Baranov wrote:
At the very least I would rather see bounty NPCs reduced in quantity and risen in quality.
"Oh no an enemy has breached the city, we must retaliate! But we don't have enough funds for swords! *gasp* Just throw your bodies at them and punch these people in adamantite armor until our corpses pile up enough to block them out! Chaaarge!"
This is a road to potentially go down as well, but the issue I take with it is that we've already gone down these roads. Since the reintroduction of bounty NPCs, we've gone from them being really powerful and unique (Taslamar NPCs would holy word, ayamao/zhenshi/northern wastes NPCs would berserk, and Empire NPCs would CLEAVE), to being purposefully hampered to silly scripts, to their current form of roadblocks that pose no threat while alone. All in all I prefer the current form the most out of all the previous options because they carry the least feeling of the NPCs doing all the work for the defense, but ultimately I would really like to move away from any form of automatic endless guard spawning. Static solutions are just better in my eyes, and provide more depth to the defense of a city. Killing bounty NPCs as an attacker feels meaningless (despite it outlawing you like crazy) and watching bounty NPCs die as a defender feels meaningless too (despite the fact that they're the #1 casualties in any city PvP). It has a lousy OOCness to it.
Baranov wrote:
Making a city zone no gate/summon would then make those in the city unable to gather "log in time" though right?
This is a good point. A current intermediate form of this that would require less work on the side of builders would be to simply remove gate targets from within cities, which, while it would still allow for the potential of PC gate targets, would at least provide more security for inns as a whole by making "drive-by" tactics less potent. The primary reason I suggest making gates/summons impossible in cities was to reinforce the "city" feel of a siege, in that you're going to have to enter the gates with your warparty, rather than bypassing the static guards with a single un-outlawed person only to gate in an entire army that's banished.
baldric wrote:
I would not be opposed to putting one room in the city that you could gate into and out of, and filling this room with guards - maybe even more than the regular gates. This should solve the inconvenience problem.
I really like this idea.
Baranov wrote:
No clue if it would be better or worse but: I would rather see more of a response unit for city attacks. A group of npcs that respond to the city being attacked to go to and engage an enemy formation. Similar to, but not nearly as powerful as, the war-party summoned by slaying a judge. It just feels dumb that guards all over the city are screaming for their lives that there are enemies there, and all the other guards kind of sit there thinking "Hm, should I do anything about that?" I'd think SOME guards would go and check it out (not gate guards obviously, gotta maintain their post).
I'm not trying to be contrary to your idea here, but let me just try to take this thought of yours and turn it around on you here, because it's actually the basis for my entire line of reasoning behind this thread.
If you join a tribunal, -you're- that group. That's you. I'm not a fan of having a roving set of guards like the Teronian enforcers because that job is, quite literally, why you join a tribunal in the first place. There's a reason why NPCs like that only exist in places like Teron and Ch'zyyrm: Those cities don't have a PC-based tribunal. If you're a member of the Peacekeepers/talon/legion, congratulations, you're the roaming guard!
Baldric wrote:
I'm not keen on the true-seeing idea, and I agree with Mundy that discouraging solo pvp is undesirable. What if the gate guards were high hp, so going through them would alert the city and give everyone advanced warning, but they didn't hit tooooo hard, so a well prepped character could solo them as a challenge? Somewhere between a regular GM NPC with a weapon and an outer guardian.
This is a good direction to take things, I believe. As long as the guards are static and aren't going to spawn on the attackers automatically, I think they should pose a reasonable threat that has to be taken seriously. I'm thinking something along the lines of Zhenshi's defense system (where there's a few different classes in formation near each gate) is what every city should follow. Can a single person kill them, especially with a tribunal NPC in tow? Sure. Is that a good idea? Eh, it depends on how crazy you are.
In other words, while I don't want to discourage solo PvP myself either: Is it really -right- that a single person can easily bypass a city's defenses if he's a known outlaw? As fun as it has been to be that person in the past, the answer to that should be no.