Rebalancing defences

[darnokpl]

After viewing video from viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3036
I think we need changes in siege mechanic.

First pros for raiding:
Make braziers dmg depends on character current BB (when he is not hitting any object), so when you have 100% BB braziers should deal MAX_DMG (10BB/sec right now), but when you drop to 50% BB braziers should deal less dmg maybe 7.5BB/sec and when you get 10% BB dmg should lower even more.

Why?
From my experience running away from braziers fire is part of raid when you may lag and KO easily, so this one should be easier for raiders.


Now pros for defenders:
1. Make braziers MAX_DMG depends on iron purity, but not like food multi x10, it should be some function like sqrt.
Braziers built from high purity iron for example with multi 6.0 should make max dmg sqrt(6) * 10BB/sec = 24.49, should be enough to counter high purity food.
This would also have nice impact of game economy... people would want to get better iron, iron prices would go up as they should, right now 0% purity bar is equal to 30+% (except inpirationals) that is bad for traders and crafters.

2. Make walls health (x2 or x3 always) and soak much higher (x5 only if basher doesn't have right tools):
- simple fence should require axe to get bashed with current soak,
- stone wall - need pick axe to bash with reasonable soak,
- plank fence (I haven't seen lumberjacks with single handed axe cutting large threes. Can we get double handed axes please or make metal axe change dmg when equipped in one hand and larger dmg when using both hands?)

3. Best of all when you have criminal debuff you CAN'T SWAP items on your character... so raiding groups would need to get more numbers to have bashers with proper tools and fighters with swords to protect them (murder should require melee weapon designed to fights like sword)

4. Make structures like houses, owens, smelters etc (other than walls and braziers harder to destroy) by increase BB drain for each hit (increase soak or hp would be nice, but not too much, so people who made mistake could destroy them).

[Darwoth]

more retarded ideas, big surprise.

how about we just implement brick walls and rams like with haven, simplest and most balanced solution. maybe make rams require a 6 or 12 hour completion time instead of 24.

[Potjeh]

As we all know, defences in Salem don't do anything, so they need to be buffed in some way. The obvious solution is just raising the numbers on everything, but that's just pushing the grind bar a bit higher and doesn't get rid of the ugly aspects of defence building as it stands currently.

So, first of all, the walls. I think it's rather ugly that they're either virtually unbreakable at low phlegm or blow up instantly at high phlegm. Mid phlegm range isn't really where people spend a lot of time, so it's pretty much irrelevant. Anyway, as I understand it the walls are supposed to be speed bumps which increase the brazier exposure time. If they are to do this, they should delay attackers reliably. So, I propose that damage to buildings should be capped. With this, a wall would delay an attacker with 300 phlegm just as long as it delays one with 100. The 300 phlegm guy would still be able to go through more walls and buildings without refilling his humours, so it's not pointless to raise phlegm. Anyway, the main difference between walls should be hitpoints (soak being a lot less relevant now), ie higher tier walls will have higher minimum delay for attackers.

Now, the second component of defence - the braziers. They're not really doing anything with their puny damage, so they need a massive boost. I think that both the individual brazier damage should be increased and the damage sum cap should be raised (ie max BB drain should be 10x or 20x of a single brazier rather than 5x). The point is, braziers should be a serious concern for any raider, regardless of how high his BB is. The naive implementation of just upping the damage doesn't really accomplish that, though. What I think would work best here is something analogous to the Reel debuff, so the more consecutive shots you take the more damage each new shot will do to you. Higher BB chars would still be able to tank braziers longer, but the bonus time would scale a lot slower than linearly.

The most radical change I have in mind for braziers is removing their ability to shoot through solid objects. An exception should be made for adjacent objects, so you could still protect braziers with your walls at the cost of a severely reduced angle of coverage. It may seem weird that I'd want to nerf the braziers when defences are so weak currently, but I think this is a prerequisite for the massive damage boost I talked about in the last paragraph. With this brazier nerf you'd be able to hide in blind spots while your Reel-analogue ticks down. This encourages tactical planning in both raiding and setting up defences. You'd need both open space to give braziers a line of fire, and walls to keep them under that fire longer. Multi-layer walls would be next to useless, because after the first layer is broken the raider would be protected from brazier fire by the wall segments around him while he breaks the next layer. I think this is a very good thing, because multi-layer walls are damn ugly and building them is just pure tedium. Another benefit of this is nerfing vaults. As it is vaults are superior to villages because you can get more wall layers for your buck if you make the walls smaller. But with multi-layer walls being next to useless, you'd be forced to build large walls so you have space for more braziers who's cone of coverage includes the critical spots (ie the inner wall around your lean to). And if you're going to build a huge ass protected area with wide open spaces anyway, you may as well make use of that space with fields and such, at which point it stops being a vault and turns into a proper settlement.

[Darwoth]

thanks for deleting all of my replies and leaving your moronic suggestions instead, have fun talking to yourself you dumb sack of ****.

[Potjeh]

I'm sorry about your derail, but it was a mess and the one post of yours I left contains pretty much all you had to suggest.

[Darwoth]

no not really, and the reason it was a "mess" is because you felt the need to pointlessly ***** with two threads and combine them into your own.

[Potjeh]

If you have moderation issues this is not the place to discuss them, so cease and desist. And FYI, the merge was at darnok's request.

[Gauteamus]

Introducing a ram-like mechanic into Salem might be an interesting topic of itself, but deserves a separate thread, so as not to clutter up those ideas?

More on-topic: Potjeh, I assume you mean braziers would still be able to shoot through liftable objects, but be blocked by houses, smelters, walls and so on?
Also, it would have to be finished buildings only, else it would be a raider strategy to put down construction sign shields as they go?
This would possibly still be an interesting problem/feature, that the raiding side can change the topology of the battlefield/brazier LOS as they move around the claim.

[darnokpl]

no not really, and the reason it was a "mess" is because you felt the need to pointlessly ***** with two threads and combine them into your own.

It was my idea.

This would possibly still be an interesting problem/feature, that the raiding side can change the topology of the battlefield/brazier LOS as they move around the claim.

Imho it would be interesting if structures on different terrain heights would not block braziers... then you could build walls on for example 10 height and braziers 30-40, so they could shoot above walls.
As for structures blocking good luck with massive town areas required to build and defend any hv.

[Darwoth]

.

you know, it takes a lot to get me riled but meddling ***** like you are certainly one of my peeves, it would be extremely difficult for me to not rip your arms off and beat you to death with them were we to ever cross paths.

to recap, the most balanced solution for both small and large groups is a return to havens ram system with a reduced construction window. there is simply no other solution that properly balances larger groups having an advantage but still allowing smaller groups to compete.

and no amount of coming up with yet more flawed systems because you dont want to build multiple walls or think they are "ugly", or darnoks sagely suggestions such as raiders not being able to equip swords is going to be an improvement over the tried and true haven system that worked just fine for years.