by
Sharana
» 27 Dec 2016, 05:56
The devs (Bobik mainly) commented on the topic on multiple occasions in different places, but it's all pieces that are hard to get together. If you didn't search the answers on the forum or didn't have the opportunity to ask many questions yourself there are many blank spaces, so I decided to write up what was shared so far with us as 1 big picture and not bits of info. Mainly due to 2 reasons:
1) This stuff is still not ingame and they are developing it in preparation for wave 2 that can't start without it. The more feedback and ideas how to refine the details we provide during the development the less changes they will be making in the future based on tests and feedback.
2) Many don't know how the war stuff will work and this is a good chance to get the idea.
I'm NOT developer and I'm sure they can't decide 100% how everything will work till the development itself is actually done, but they've shared the general idea.
The first thing to know is that there are 2 claims when you build the monument (the ones playing the MMO already saw it) - the town and the real claim (countryside).
The town claim is the inner circle (dark blue) that is with fixed radius of 20 tiles and is ready from the beginning, it doesn't grow in time.
The realm claim is the outer circle (light blue) that is growing just as the LiF:YO monument with time and monument levels upgrades.
The difference between the two is that the town claim with the monument itself is pretty much protected while the countryside isn't. But you can set the personal claims in the countryside area to give protection to the structures and containers there.
For now they are going with the idea of regional servers like 1 world for EU, 1 world for NA and so on. So the battle times will be adjusted for the regional servers during primetimes (like 18:00-22:00 for example). The reason behind such decision is that we all want to see big battles instead of defenses/attacks at 5 a.m. with handful of people if the guilds have the opportunity to select their own vulnerability windows. Also avoiding unconquerable guilds like for example americans on EU server who set their siege time to hours when they have many players while all the EU guilds on the EU server sleep and don't have the numbers to attack them.
So when war between 2 guilds is declared they stop losing alignment for killing each other and assaults on the claims can be planned. The different claims follow different rules.
The realm claim (the countryside) will become vulnerable for raiding during the universal battle window (the mentioned primetime). It will be vulnerable daily in the specific server's universal hours as long as you are in state of war. But vulnerable to the guilds you are at war with only, neutral guilds can't loot or destroy buildings there. To add protection to the buildings and containers on the countryside you can set up personal claims that will defend them. During this battle times (that will be called JH) the enemy will have the opportunity to perform "loud and long" ritual to remove the personal claims on the countryside in order to loot/destroy the stuff on them. If the defenders are active they will have their chance to interrupt the enemy and keep their protection if they can defend the claim. The same mechanic will probably work for the personal claims made somewhere in the wildness.
The town claim (20 tiles radius) will be invulnerable during those raiding (JH) hours - the only way to damage it is a siege. The guild you are at war with can declare you a "Challenge battle" by placing a special ‘Challenge’ monument on the Realm claim and it will take place on the next day after the declaration. The attacker can pick time for the attack (on the next day after the special monument is placed), but it should be inside this server universal battles window (primetime) and the defender can then adjust it by +/- 1 hour. This day in preparation is used from both sides to send invites to whoever they want fighting on their side - be it guild member, allies members or mercenaries (guildless players), players can just get invite (from the defenders/attackers leaders/officers) and sign up for the battle if they want. The battle will be in instance (1 terrain block big or 1/9 of a server node/ YO map in size) and the signed up players will be teleported when the battle starts. It will be just piece of land without any structures or terraforming, open field with small hills if you want. This way the engine and servers performance will allow normal (as lag free) battles of 100 vs 100 at least with aim for 200 vs 200. The anti zerg protection will be 3:1 ratio maximum meaning that if 1 side has only 20 players signed up for the battle the enemy side will fight "only" with up to 60 players even if 200 are signed up. That's still big advantage, so don't count on playing on even ground with bigger alliances only because you have 20-30 good warriors and hope that the instanced battles will be "even" so that you can try to keep yourself safe with "quality" only. There will also be a minimum to prevent 10 man guild to enter with only 4-5 players and force 100 man guild to fight with 12-15 only.
About the battle itself - it will be held over actual terrain blocks from the MMO, not new pregenerated maps for the battles only. They system to determine the winner will be "King of the hill".
They will choose terrains that are suitable for battle (like no cliff in the middle, river, not on islands and so on) and strip the terrain from everything, only trees will stay. Will then prepare all those “blocks” and place the POI (Point of interest) based on that – in some cases it might be bigger, in others smaller. The general idea is that both sides can’t stand in turtle formation on different sides of the POI and just block it, doing nothing. Only 1 side can effectively control the POI (defend) forcing the other one to attack.
No one can build on those battles, only combat preparations. It’s just a field battle. Will prevent sides from “camping” in their spawn and will motivate them to rush for the middle POI (slightly closer to the defender) in order to capture it before the enemy – face to face combat. Cavalry can cap it first of course, but can’t hold it against infantry, can slow down the enemy infantry instead, so that friendly infantry secures it first.
There will be a timer of how long you control the POI, something like 5 minutes. If enemy enters the POI area the timer resets. If you hold it for certain amount of time without resets you win that battle.
The winner of the battle gets all the equipment of the losing army that was dropped on the ground during the battle and the losing guild’s monument sustains damage. The damage can even degrade the monument. Along with the damaged monument, the losers also lose the ability to issue battle challenges for the next 3 real-life days.
So if the defender loses a battle their monument will take damage and eventually degrade in level (after more lost battles). It will take "few" losses to downgrade the momument to level 1 at which point siege can be started and the town claim becomes vulnerable. How long this vulnerability will last is still unknown. The goal is to allow those sieges to be open world where everyone can come (3rd party can loot and destroy too), so you as defender will need all the friends you've ever made on the server there helping you fend off all enemies from your vulnerable town claim (and monument of course). If the tests show that the servers are not capable of that some sort of instanced battle with that castle will has to be formed.
Tl:dr you can raid your enemy daily on the countryside (that will be called JH) without damaging or looting his most valuable stuff. For that you will have to siege the town claim after successfully won instanced open field battles, so the option to destroy the monument and place your own to take over the claim is still there, it's just not easy and fast one.
Last edited by
Sharana on 10 Jul 2017, 10:17, edited 2 times in total.