Patrol and scouting duties

[SinijS]

Here is an idea to further promote ownership and control of the land -

Guard Duty

Allow players to control and direct NPC (aka guards) patrols within set radius of home city/camp. Each guard that can be sent on patrol has a cost associated with it and loot if killed, if guard is lost it has to be repurchased (resource) and trained (long time or player participation) to replace. While controlling guards players cannot be grouped with any other player.

Person assigned to guard duty will be able to control NPCs with basic commands, such as follow me, attack and defend this position. Guards will not automatically return home if abandoned and has to be manually 'checked out' and 'turned in'.

Create 'typical' archetypes of guards - healer, caster and archer and melee. Each start as 'rookie' and has to ether spend time in training hall or spar with a player to train. (<-- If you make sparring with a player desirable activity established players would want to have newbies around to spar with guards to train them)

Give guild leadership ability to assign players to guard duty, set a limit to number and quality of guards that can be checked out and set salary based on ether kills or time spent patrolling. Allow monitoring of relevant statistics for any player on guard duty - such as enemies killed, guards lost, distance traveled, places visited.

Here is another idea along the same lines...

Scouting Duty

Allow creation of automated scouting outpost towers - when enemies pass within range of detection it would notify controlling nation that enemies were sighted and where but no detailed information as to number or guild. Give these towers limited range defensive abilities (ie wall archers) so they can be used as 'safe zones' from small scale attacks. Put a limit on how many scouting outpost towers can be built, but don't make it hard limit - it just should be exponentially more expensive to have more than just few.

Allow guild leadership to assign players to scouting duty. While on scouting duty player can respond (instantly teleport) to scouting tower when alarm is raised, but only one player per alarm per tower.

At this point responding player will be able to identify enemies and even mark them on the map for the nation members to see. To keep enemy marked at all times player on scouting duty will need to shadow enemy group.

Let guild leadership monitor number of responses to alarms, number or markings and assign salary for each event.

[WyvernWulf]

I like these ideas a great deal. As long as the tools available to the guild leadership are detailed and helpful, this could work very well. It is always a good thing when you can start bringing in tasks for guild members to take part in, in order to feel as if they are truly contributing to the whole in some way shape or form.

[waltzie]

Mh.. I don't know ....
It's seems nice but ... leave this to Guild work...
...

Maybe it's better to make these works by guild groups ....

It's will be nice only for BIG guilds (lots of cities), I'd forbid it to medium & little guilds (few cities)

Cya

[SinijS]

Big guilds and nations have large area to defend with lots of patrols and scouts working at it, small guilds has smaller area to defend with fewer patrols and towers.

[AjaxBA]

I like the scouting idea but a.)scout towers are destructible all the time
whomever gets the "kill" on the tower leaves their name and guild in the rubble. a calling card so to speak. will promote rivalry. make them hard to kill and have them be defended by a few archers inside that can not be easily killed but would allow for border skirmishes.
Make them upgradeable and have scout NPC's sent out that can be set to attack anyone that comes in. Allowing a guidl to lock down an area (and promote conflict)

[SinijS]

Asset destruction is a touchy subject. On one hand you want to allow it so its possible to win war or skirmish, on other hand you don't want to make it too easy so players don't feel the need to 'babysit' assets 24/7 or even not bother with them.

I think asset destruction is better be a) limited so midnight bashing is not possible b) require financial investment on attacker's part c) be preventable before it starts.

As to scouting towers being attacked. Upgraded guards should be able to defend against 1-2 people attacking it. Auto-dispatched guards on asset damage should be able to defend against 4-5 people attacking it. Overall you should get at least 30 minutes warning to respond.

I liked idea of portable sige machines, where you had to march them to enemy assets to get siege started.

[sumdood]

i like the idea of npc patrols. but, why would you need a PC to control them? guard duty sounds boring, then the game turns into a job and less of a game. give the guild leader a map of the area around the city, allow him to set waypoints for guards to walk around on 24/7.

i like the idea of outposts also. use them to guard strategic places on the map, like a resource, or a chokepoint, without having to build a whole city. of course, it's not a permanent structure and should be able to always be attacked.

i would also like to see visible boundries. shadowbane's map is an ugly and confusing mess, i think oblivion attempted to introduce borders but it doesn't seem like it accomplished its goal.

[Cookiemonster]

i like the idea of npc patrols. but, why would you need a PC to control them? guard duty sounds boring, then the game turns into a job and less of a game. give the guild leader a map of the area around the city, allow him to set waypoints for guards to walk around on 24/7.

i like the idea of outposts also. use them to guard strategic places on the map, like a resource, or a chokepoint, without having to build a whole city. of course, it's not a permanent structure and should be able to always be attacked.

i would also like to see visible boundries. shadowbane's map is an ugly and confusing mess, i think oblivion attempted to introduce borders but it doesn't seem like it accomplished its goal.You can have it where your scouts can send a message to the guild, telling of where there is enemy however you have the option to mislead this scout.

[MajmaJ]

Damn Sinij I never thought you were such a lightweight.

These two features are something that I've also wanted for a long time. Frankly I don't see how Shadowbane neglected to put towers into the game.

I believe that towers should be cheap and easy to repair. I would like to see them designed in such a way that promotes small scale siege situations that aren't very costly to lose. This would allow them to be excluded from any sort of windows of opportunity bs that can be saved for towns/mines.

Perhaps the goal in a tower attack could be to take control of it and not destroy it (other then to break in the door or something). If you control all the towers a certain city controls (a limited number) perhaps then and only then you can bane it. Or perhaps if you control a certain number of towers that aren't yours you get some sort of bonus similar to a boon.

There are plenty of incentives you could put in place. You simply need to make towers worth attacking and worth defending but not make that reason "because it costs alot".

[gremmlynn]

No WoO bs means towers will be attacked when there is nobody on-line to defend them. Basically just an exercise in PvE with any guards.

I really don't see SBG making the mistake again that forces people to choose between successfully playing the game and having a real life.

[MajmaJ]

No WoO bs means towers will be attacked when there is nobody on-line to defend them. Basically just an exercise in PvE with any guards.

I really don't see SBG making the mistake again that forces people to choose between successfully playing the game and having a real life.

So what? If they are cheap why does that matter? I know TSP would go Tower hunting during peak hours for some fun, wouldn't you?

[AjaxBA]

I figure :
guards should be easy to kill (altho not as easy as SB, but like you can killa guard in a few minutes)
I also think that your guards should be able to farm for you some, so killing off someones guards not only costs the guard but the farming they have done, perhaps even have them collect the loot on them and they return every hour and bank.

Towers should take awhile-as in, you have to setup seige equipment which takes 18 hrs to become active to destroy a tower. Once they are active they can be destroyed

[Swindlesmite]

Well, I kinda agree with you Ajaxx, but not have the time so long. Make It maybe 30 minutes to an hour. Reasoning? Thats probably all the time A lookout tower would have once they saw an enemy. Have it post A warning posted every 5 or 10 minutes.

[AjaxBA]

the problem i have with such a short span is that ninja raiding would be too effective, the only real counter to this would be that whomever destroyed it leaves a mark on it that identifies them. the 18 hrs would mean that the defending guild would have a chance to get together some forces to defend. I dont think that the game should be a 24/7 responsibility but having 18 hr (almost a full day, thus stopping 6 am raids) to organize a defense to take out the enemy forces and their seige equipment after the 18 hr window

[SinijS]

I think we should follow 'easy come easy go' mentality - if you can rebuild easily and destroy easily non-crucial assets then you have a lot of PvP going on. As to off hours, simply beef up defenses and guards for 'graveyard shift', so all the sudden you have to spend A LOT more effort to do the same thing if you want to do it at night.

[Vandarr]

I don't like the automated scouting towers. No offense to the rest of the ideas - I just like being forced to roll out there and figure things out.

[AjaxBA]

that is just it, battlefield scouting would still be needed and really, the only thing your towers would tell you is if they had someone in range, ultimately, it just gives something to burn on the enemies side and scouts should have a longer track radius so they can see the towers before the towers can see them, so if the scout tower network had holes... a scout would find em

[Vandarr]

Meh. Defensively, the enemy has to come to you. After all, you are defending a fixed position. Limiting the scouting resources by forcing it to be player run allows for the offensive players to have more creativity in attacking that fixed position from an unexpected area. To me, that's worth more than the small benefit the towers will provide.

Besides, in a more practical sense, can you imagine the lag caused by all the server messages when people run by on their way to other places?

[Spawll]

Having been focused as a battlefield scout during my time in SB I would say that anything that automates detection of an enemy is something I would not be fond of.

If you want to know if someone is in your territory then you should be in your territory. If you and your guild are out running around elsewhere then you shouldn't be tipped off if people happen to cross your boundaries. If you automate this function then the risk of leaving your town is limited. There needs to be a risk/reward calculation involved in decisions.

I would much rather put the onus on the players for this function.

[SinijS]

Besides, in a more practical sense, can you imagine the lag caused by all the server messages when people run by on their way to other places?

It can be simple log that scouts and guild leaders can access or queue so you can ask how many players are in the area instead of 'spamming' message. It can be set up so it warns only if players from nations on the kill list appear in the area.


I think knowing what going on in your area is very important to land ownership. If you have information you can intelligently react to it. Instead of having unopposed enemy group roll through your territory, only to often not find anyone to kill or anything to destroy, you will have enemy group roll through your territory, with you told about it by your scouting towers, and get into fight or get to destroy your scouting towers.


If anything this change will facilitate random fights and that is Good Thing in PvP game.

[Keruki]

I think there should be a factor added so that there is a chance the scout tower does not see the character and he sneaks by. Or Better yet, someone kills the guard in the tower and they can't report back.

[SinijS]

Or Better yet, someone kills the guard in the tower and they can't report back.

If you make towers unreliable (i.e. its possible to shut it down before it reports) then nobody would use them.

[SoulShade]

true, but rogues, mages with illusionary powers, and others that have some litheness, or sneakiness should be able pass by unseen.

I would assume that the tower guards would not be able to see invisible anyways though.

[Daerim]

Or you could tier their relay system. Tier 1 is runners, tier 2 could be signal fires and tier 3 could be heliograph systems. With runners, the opposing force could kill them before the reach town, but the information they would give would be substantial. Signal fires would reach home base very rapidly, but be very limited in the information they could relay. A heliograph or similar system would be able to transmit a great deal of information very quickly, but the opposing force could still get into the tower and kill the operators, cutting off the flow of information.

[SinijS]

I'm all for being able to stop flow of information after initial 'oh ****' message is delivered. There should be ways to shut down scouting tower quickly, just not quickly enough that army could march past it and nobody got warned.

[SoulShade]

I'm all for being able to stop flow of information after initial 'oh ****' message is delivered. There should be ways to shut down scouting tower quickly, just not quickly enough that army could march past it and nobody got warned.

True, but on the same token, something along the lines of an MMO action similar to a Hannibal or Pearl Harbor incident, etc. would be quite interesting in its own right.