Siege weapons and their reload speed

Soarin'

Got a nasty surprise yesterday being 1 shotted by a ballista yesterday ( I had not read the patch notes).

This I have no problem with, it actually makes these weapons viable in terms of game balance. The zerg has a viable counter now and it works really well from what I saw after a few hours of sieging. Groups are spacing themselves out, siege shields are going up and glass cannon builds are feeling the pain of min/maxing.

Sieging has become more diverse and I applaud ZoS for this change. However as with all content updates I feel a little tweaking is in order:

• Setup time of siege engines is too quick
• Rate of fire of siege engines is too high
• Siege engine cost/ap gain is now too high

My reasoning for these 3 points are mainly to do with balance and counter balance issues, pvp should always be a rock paper scissors game with a tool for every job and none that can fit all situations.

In their current state siege engines are helping to reduce lag in Cyrodiil (I didn't notice this untill a friend mentioned it on TS yesterday), this is in no doubt due to the reduction in zerg sizes and density (fewer AoE calculations between players makes for happy server hamsters). Zerging has a hard counter now, 2 ballista bolts on target will flatten groups of players.

However, it must be stated that siege engines are now being adopted as go too DPS machines in more situations than simply breaking up zergs in battles of attrition, we are seeing people drop these everywhere and utilizing them as regular combat tools. The two reason for this I feel is the setup time coupled with the sustainable DPS output of siege engines, you can pop one up at a moments notice giving the opponents very little warning and once deployed provides steady long range DPS capable of killing most players outright.

My thoughts are that siege engine setup time should be increased to make these tools only viable in attrition battles and not skirmishes, by increasing the setup time the user becomes more vulnerable to being killed in an exposed position or gives the opponents time to back off.

The reload rate of siege needs to be increased, these weapons can nail zergs in single shots, by lowering their fire rate coordinating fire with a few siege weapons team play becomes a necessity as they shift from steady DPS machines into spike damage zerg busters. I have seen siege engines used as AOE tools used for area control by constantly spamming their fire onto choke points.

Any thoughts?

Horrum

I really like the new siege damage, but you have a point. They should not be the go-to in every situation. Therefore I agree that the setup time should be increased. There should be a real commitment to planting a SIEGE weapon.

However, I don't think the reload times need increasing. The reason is that changing direction (because moving targets) already takes a while when combined with reload time.

I can't comment on the cost effect yet. I did lose siege weapons quite fast last night (increased cost), but then again they were buffed considerably so it makes sense that they cost more (ap/time)? Dunno. I will reserve judgement for now.

cozmon3c_ESO

they are fine the way they are,

just ballistas give you very little time to move out of the way, the bolts are there in seconds, especially the closer you are to them. you will have 0 time to react unlike the catapult and the treb. this is the only issue i see with balance atm as these can one shot you but leave you no time to move out of the way. damage needs to be decreased on ballista or the time of arrow travel needs to increase.

just my 2 cents on it.

Suntzu1414

Soarin' wrote: »

Got a nasty surprise yesterday being 1 shotted by a ballista yesterday ( I had not read the patch notes).

This I have no problem with, it actually makes these weapons viable in terms of game balance. The zerg has a viable counter now and it works really well from what I saw after a few hours of sieging. Groups are spacing themselves out, siege shields are going up and glass cannon builds are feeling the pain of min/maxing.

Sieging has become more diverse and I applaud ZoS for this change. However as with all content updates I feel a little tweaking is in order:

• Setup time of siege engines is too quick
• Rate of fire of siege engines is too high
• Siege engine cost/ap gain is now too high

My reasoning for these 3 points are mainly to do with balance and counter balance issues, pvp should always be a rock paper scissors game with a tool for every job and none that can fit all situations.

In their current state siege engines are helping to reduce lag in Cyrodiil (I didn't notice this untill a friend mentioned it on TS yesterday), this is in no doubt due to the reduction in zerg sizes and density (fewer AoE calculations between players makes for happy server hamsters). Zerging has a hard counter now, 2 ballista bolts on target will flatten groups of players.

However, it must be stated that siege engines are now being adopted as go too DPS machines in more situations than simply breaking up zergs in battles of attrition, we are seeing people drop these everywhere and utilizing them as regular combat tools. The two reason for this I feel is the setup time coupled with the sustainable DPS output of siege engines, you can pop one up at a moments notice giving the opponents very little warning and once deployed provides steady long range DPS capable of killing most players outright.

My thoughts are that siege engine setup time should be increased to make these tools only viable in attrition battles and not skirmishes, by increasing the setup time the user becomes more vulnerable to being killed in an exposed position or gives the opponents time to back off.

The reload rate of siege needs to be increased, these weapons can nail zergs in single shots, by lowering their fire rate coordinating fire with a few siege weapons team play becomes a necessity as they shift from steady DPS machines into spike damage zerg busters. I have seen siege engines used as AOE tools used for area control by constantly spamming their fire onto choke points.

Any thoughts?

I recently sent an email to development team (i'm sure they get a thousand of them), with similar thoughts.


Keep the damage..Make it more expensive to buy (more damage = more cost),
we do this for armor/weapons (purple / goldies), why not for seige??

Also, reload times are too quick (this should be compensated for damage). give people time to react.
This would also prevent (field of sieges...which we are experiencing now).
Allowing player to attack those, using siege on them.

one additionally point. Reduce the cone/area of effect.
Smart players, (you know who you are), are overlaping AOE...so you get hit by both.
--this is insta-kill...

Appreciate the thinking.


Kill Well
ST

Soarin'

cozmon3c_ESO wrote: »

they are fine the way they are,

just ballistas give you very little time to move out of the way, the bolts are there in seconds, especially the closer you are to them. you will have 0 time to react unlike the catapult and the treb. this is the only issue i see with balance atm as these can one shot you but leave you no time to move out of the way. damage needs to be decreased on ballista or the time of arrow travel needs to increase.

just my 2 cents on it.

I am not saying I do not wish for them to be lethal, I am stating that the reload speed allows for them to be used to permanently blanket choke points with lethal AoE. I love the fact they can kill off mindless zergs, but at the same time I dont want every crack in the wall and doorway turned into the impasable fires of hell.

Increase reload time (time between clicks that encourages conservative usage), keep the alignment speed as it is and you still have a weapon that can send opponents running with a well placed shot or if used in groups of 2 or more can insta-kill immobile groups. I am looking at these as powerful tools for team play, image grasping tallons + 3 or more ballista bolts landing on top of a group, that would reward the siege users for being patient/smart and perhaps give their opponents a fighting chance at least.

I think it is important that to use these tools effectively requires support from actual front line combatants, in no way should they be allowed to effectively make a lone player up on a wall into a killing machine. Encourage team play and skill with siege, not rapid firing derp guns

eventide03b14a_ESO

I think they have done an excellent job. The siege weapons have a reasonable delay and there is plenty of warning to players to get out of the way. This is something ZOS has done very well.

Dekkameron

I don't think siege weapons have too fast a reload at all. It seems about right.