Short introduction from
Bobik before we started with the questions:
Real open world (everything happening on 1 world) is much better than instances - no doubt about that. But there is the performance issues - if they manage to optimize with 300 players then it will lag on 320 and will be unplayable with 350. And the more players are involved the harder it gets, the server load and data transfers grow exponentially. It’s impossible to have unlimited amount of players, so as many other developers it comes to a choice - keep it entirely open world and hope that the amount of players that can kill the server’s performance won’t bunch up in 1 place, because of game design decisions, soft limitations etc … or go with hardcaps on the server. That’s why they went with instanced battles and sieges - to provide that cap where performance in battle involving X amount of players is guaranteed. Yes it is possible to gather 500 people and go raid someone. Yes that will lag like hell, but at the same time the defender won’t lose his claim in the lag. The battles that actually have serious consequences will be instanced to ensure they are playable and fair. Will do everything possible to keep all aspects of the siege even with instance.
1. Are you going to implement the sieges before Steam EA. How is Steam EA looking at this point - is it in sight or still so much left to do?
Bobik: Unfortunately can’t say anything about that right now. Steam EA might undermine the OBT release and that’s a good point. Wanted to launch the EA in order to perform more advanced tests, but now that doesn’t look like such of a good idea. Right now there are no certain plans of how, when and if EA will even happen - might go directly to OBT when ready. Will of course try to get as much functionality before OBT as possible.
Sieges will never be in final state - optimizing and changing them will be ongoing process all the time - just want to introduce “0.5 version” of sieges to the players initially (all the basics and some of the advanced stuff, but lacking high player cap, many types of siege equipment etc). There will be no siege towers and siege ladders initially, only trebuchets, sapper charges and undermining, but the rest will come eventually.2. Can you place more than 1 siege totem? Meaning can guilds A and B place 1 totem each on guild C? If yes how will that be handled? If not what prevents guild C that is ally with guild A to put siege totem first to “save” them from the guild B that will come for real instead of fake battle?
Bobik: You can place only 1 siege totem and yes you can place “fake” totem and start “protective siege” to help your ally before attackers put down their one. The system will never be able to distinguish who is friendly and who is enemy, so that can’t be avoided. But the price of setting up siege totem will be quite significant even for big guilds. So yes such tactic can buy day or two, but it shouldn’t protect the claim this way long term.3. How far away can you put the siege totem? Also there is the question of claim locations - there are possible locations like hilltops and small islands that players terraform quite a lot and you will not even get close to the claim itself. How do you plan to handle that?
Bobik: Tier 2 monument radius, so up to 60 tiles away. Yes some places will be harder to siege compared to others, but there will also be no realm claim at that point. You can terraform the area for siege camp and build landbridge to island for example.4. What exactly will be copied to the instance server? You mentioned the entire 3x3km server will become instance - if that’s the case is the server (37 for example) going to be “closed” during the siege? Will buildings that got destroyed during the siege be destroyed on the live map as well?
Bobik: Our main DB will be replicated to create the instance. It will not be exactly the 37 server - if you are near the edge of the server we will get part of the other servers as well. The instance will be 3x3km with the sieged claim in the middle of it, so no it’s not specific server replication. Unlike the Instanced battles however everything that was done on the main world will be in the instance as well - other claims, terraforming etc. While the live server will keep living it’s own life there will be communication between both, so when you destroy building in the siege it will get destroyed on the main world as well. Of course that will work only for the sieged claim - you won’t be able to destroy 3rd party claims that end up in the instance as well. The sieged claim will be “locked” so that not even guild members can interact with it and empty buildings that are about to be destroyed in the instance to save the stuff inside for example. After the siege if defenders lost their bindspots (houses destroyed) they will spawn in server 25.5. What happens to the claim after the siege - if the defenders win why should the claim still disappear after the 1 hour looting?
Bobik: Winners gain 1 hour rights to loot the claim. If defenders win they have 1 hour to loot the siege camp after which it will disappear, but the guild monument will NOT. If attackers win they have 1 hours to loot after which the guild monument will be gone. At that point they can place their own one to claim the land or ally of the defeated defender can put their monument, so it’s good to have friends nearby. And of course 3rd party can come and “steal” the ruins by placing their monument there.6. Can you build trebuchets outside of the siege camp?
Bobik: Yes of course - you can even do it on the live map before the siege and it will carry over, you just need to protect it somehow as it won’t be protected unlike the ones in the siege camp. Also I realise that if two guilds are close to each other they might fight from their own bases even as the other claims that get in this 3x3km area will carry over to the instance as well and attackers will be able to use them if they have the permissions set. If they have bindspots in that 3x3 area (claim close to the sieged one) they will be able to respawn in their own keep, it’s viable option - they will just need enough respawn point in the siege camp for the respawn tickets. That might put smaller guild in disadvantage against bigger neighbour, but well - Life is feudal 7. LiF wars are about alliance against alliance and not really guild against guild most of the time. How will the defenders allies re-spawn during the siege? Do they need tents, will such tents count to the amount of bind spots (to calculate the amount of respawn tickets)?
Bobik: The sign up process will be the same as for the Instanced battles. If someone doesn’t have spawn inside the sieged city they will spawn on the monument (attackers on the siege totem). Same for destroyed spawn (like keep) - if defenders lose the keep they will keep respawning at the monument (no respawn tickets will be lost).
Tents placed outside of the town claim won’t count to the respawn tickets.
8. Can you give some more details on how exactly will the amount of respawn tickets be calculated for both defender and attacker? Will it count only the town claim or the realm one as well? You also mentioned that attackers will have about 4 times more respawns - is that going to be the case only if they have every single tile in the siege camp taken by tents?
Bobik: For the defender it depends on the minimum amount of house and keep slots that are present in the town claim. For example if you have 50 house spots and no keep then you don’t have any respawns. If you have 50 house spots and 100 keep spots you will have 50 respawns for the defenders side. Tent can be placed instead of keep to, so if you have no keeps, but 5 tents that still 25 tickets given that you also have 25+ house spots.
For attackers it will be only “rally points”, so tents. Each has 5 spots, but attackers get x4 bonus so each tent will be 20 respawn tickets.Comment: Large keep will have 120 spots, architecture houses will be 25 spots. So defenders will have about 120-160 respawn tickets total realistically speaking. Attackers can place up to 25 tents in the area they have + some trebs and defenses, so they can expect up to 500 respawns for their side. Later it was mentioned that respawns are automatic, so if you have a noob that dies 10 times in 10 minutes you will have to thank him and just not accept him to the next siege
9. 3 hours siege is quite some time unlike the relatively fast instanced battles. Will you consider the option to let crashed players rejoin the instance? If someone is leaving can the next player on the list (above the cap that didn’t get in on the start) be teleported in the instance to take his place (so that there are always 100-150 players inside depending on the cap)?
Bobik: If we see that 3 hours are too long and most don’t have enough time for that we might lower it down to 2. But we think that siege should be long and major event. Also right now it’s quite hard for the attackers to win and shorter siege times gives even bigger advantage to defenders. Currently working on system to reinvite players back to the instance if they crashed inside, but there will be no way to jump in and out after it started. Nothing against such system tho, so might be implemented later on.10. How is the siege schedule going to work for sieges - same as instanced battles?
Bobik: Yes, same system. It’s not exactly 24 hours, it’s moved to the primetime. For example let’s say the primetime is 19:00 to 22:00. If you put the totem on Monday 23:59 then the battle will be on Tuesday 22:00 (last possible prime time window) which is less then 24 hours. If you place it at 3 in the morning on Tuesday then the battle will be delayed till Wednesday 19:00 (earliest possible timewindow) which will be more then 24 hours. If totem is place in the primetime window like 20:30 then it will be exactly 24 hours.11. On the topic of instanced battles - what do you think about the maps and the mechanic picking them - is everything final? Many hope not, because it’s ridiculously unfair given the fact that instanced battles are the main defense against a siege. There are maps that favor the attackers, others the defender and some maps are terrible for both sides.
Bobik: There are performance related problems with the forest maps now, so there is slight chance that we will remove such maps from rotation. Aside from that it’s actual terrains from the MMO, so if someone believes it’s too unbalanced we can review it on case by case basis and make adjustments or remove such maps from rotation.12. Can you provide us with some overview of the entire war system, many players don’t know how it’s going to work? Explain us how will the war between 2 big guilds look like from the point of war declaration to the triumph of winning the siege in your imagination? How is that involving both instanced warfare (instanced battles + instanced sieges) and open world combat (JH demolishing the realm claims and siege camp preparation battle)?
Bobik: The only way to damage the city claim will be siege. Siege can start only with tier 1 monuments so guilds will fight in instanced battles to degrade the monument to tier 1. The time depends on how many battles are lost, but multiple totems can be placed down at the same time by different guilds - 2 for tier 2 monument, 3 for tier 3 and 4 for tier 4. So if you lose all of them in that evening you will have 2 to 4 defeats, so if you are attacked by multiple guilds you need enough people to put in all battles that can be simultaneous or the monument will go down rather fast. There is also the “raiding JH” that will be held DAILY for guilds that are in state of war. It will be active during the prime hours, so 1-2 hours long and in that time buildings on the realm claim can be looted or destroyed. If they are protected by personal claim then that claim will has to be removed with “long and loud” ritual first, so defenders should be there to prevent it.13. Are you happy with the 20 tiles radius town claim? When it comes to siege that’s pretty much the citadel and many players feel that the sieges in YO (with the 64 man limit total) involve bigger castles on top of the smaller player base. Do you think 150 players defending that 20 tiles radius citadel won’t feel really cramped?
Bobik: From economy and castle building perspective I such size is small. In siege the entire 3x3km map is battleground, there will be skirmishing attacks outside and enough terrain to flank the attackers, so it should be enough as well.
Yes many think it’s too small, but there can be balance between bindspots for a siege and crafting stations - guilds will have to make their decision. Having maximum amount of bindspots doesn’t guarantee winning the siege.
Guilds should try to stick to the compact castle designs. But it also depends on strength and political influence. As huge kingdom that no one wants to provoke you might have the safety of building some big town or just enough players to defend it. So big realm claim towns are still possible - but they will require active instead of passive protection.14. Can you attack/siege vassals or you need to defeat their sovereign first?
Bobik: Yes you can of course - being part of a Kingdom doesn’t give any protection, it just suggests that you will have more players coming to help you in such situation.15. Are there news about the NA server?
Bobik: NA server will come really soon. Hardware is installed, fixing some small problems. Not this week, but it might be UP next one.16. Have you reconsidered the idea about "100% secured" personal claims?
Bobik: We have a solution for that - we will implement some influence area around the claim that’s like x1,5 of the realm claim. So if you have tier 4 monument with 100 tiles radius there will be another 150 tiles with this influence area. And you will be able to contest such claims in that area. Such influence areas can overlap with other guilds, so you will be able to contest personal claims even if you are not in war with them.