Development News #70 - On the Topic of Sieges

In today’s devblog, we would like to share our vision of the Siege system that we’re currently working on.

After some extensive brainstorming, we’ve developed a method of how we can use, and even enhance, the Instanced Battle system in a way that can also be used as an underlying technology for sieges. This should make the implementation of the Siege system relatively quick and painless!

Once a Siege Totem is placed in the vicinity of a Tier 1 Monument, it will claim a small (12 tile radius) patch of land. Both parties will have approximately 24 real-life hours to gather their troops for the siege event. The attackers will have to spend this time fortifying their Siege Camp, fetching equipment and ammo to stock it, build siege tents, organize storage stockpiles and deploy trebuchets and other weapons of war. The defenders will do well to prioritize disrupting the attackers as much as possible during this time.

Once a Siege becomes active, all enlisted members on both sides will move to the separate Siege server instance. This instance will be a mirror image of the main gameworld in this area. One particular difference is that, upon a player’s death, it will not force that player out of the Siege instance, instead, players will be respawned at their bind point: defenders, if they are bound in the area, and attackers will respawn at the Siege Totem.

The Siege system uses a ticket system and every respawn will cost the team one ticket each. The initial amount of spawn tickets for the attackers depends on the number of siege tents that they have built inside their Siege camp. Defenders’ spawn tickets are calculated as the minimum of two sums: the sum of all rally points (all types of keeps) and the sum of all bind slots (houses) inside the area. The defending team need to make sure they have a balanced layout in the area, or else may have some trouble during the siege!

The Siege will last for either three hours or until one side wins. Attackers will be assaulting the castle until they destroy the Guild's Monument. Defenders are tasked with defending their Monument for three hours or destroying the attackers’ Siege Totem.

When the siege ends, both parties will be moved back to the main gameworld. Those who have died or lost the battle will appear naked at their bind spots; the winning team will return to the spot they are bound to, victorious - and very much clothed and alive, of course!
The winners will have one hour of exclusive access rights on both of the claims (Siege Camp claim and the Guild City claim) for looting and pillaging. After one hour, both claims will disappear, letting those who won to decide the fate of these lands and the property on it.

Our vision of a siege is way more than the pure action of wall-bashing and ‘into-the-breaching’ - we want it to also be a matter of logistics, preparation, economics and careful planning.

Well, because Life is Feudal!

You are welcome to discuss the siege mechanics with the devs and players on our official Discord server: https://discord.gg/6PSGmDg

Stay tuned!

— The team