[SUGGESTION] Grappling hooks/Rope/Ladder (or other mechanic) to infiltrate keeps.

sluice · July 2016

In lights of the recent gap closer crisis, (see here here)

I think it's a good time to propose the idea of a mechanic to infiltrate keeps because let's face it: the sieging in Cyrodiil eventually gets boring and repetitive!

Below, I keep mentionning a grappling hook, but as other have mention it could be a rope, a ladder, a siege tower, etc.

Why?

Introducing a Grappling hook mechanics in this game would bring a lot more excitement to sieging.

A challenge that would quickly arise is to keep a certain balance in the game.
Most importantly, infiltrating a keep should be hard enough to still motivate groups to bring down walls/doors and give a chance to defenders to react.

It would be important for the defenders to guard the grappling locations as much as defending the wall/door being taken down.

How could it work?

The Grappling Hook could be an item bought with AP that has a one time use.
The hook would only be good for 1 person use.

Where could we use the grappling hooks?

The keeps could have specific areas where player could grapple to.
Limiting the areas where one can grapple would help defending agains't invaders:
Keeps could have 2 to 4 areas where the grappling hook could be use.
Outposts could have 1 to 2 areas.
Towers could have 1 area.

Limit the use of grappling hooks to only when the castle are tagged

This would avoid large group hiding inside keeps when the keep is not even being sieged.

How to counter cloakers

After using a grappling hooks, playing cannot cloak for X seconds (Just as if you have been detected by a Magelight)
Make it so you cannot be in cloak when you are near that location (from oustide the keep)

NPC

NPC should be added at the grappling location both inside and outside the keep.

Let me know what you guys think!
I personally feel, it would bring so much more to the sieging experience in Cyrodiil.

yodased · July 2016

Without question this should be brought into the game in some sort of fashion +1 for the well thought out ideas

Robbmrp · July 2016

I really hope they add in something like this. To be able to infiltrate a keep via rope/ladder/siege tower etc would help bring more variety to PVP. They need to consider these things as siege though so you couldn't have 20 siege as well as a bunch of hooks about. Maybe .5 siege or so, then ever 2 grappling hooks would count as 1 siege or something like that.

I'd also rather have this ability to use at any time instead of just when the keeps flagged although you cannot take a keep with it. For example, I arrive at Nikel and there's no one there buy guards. I toss up my hook and climb up to the top and stealth when available. Then I can lie in wait for unsuspecting travelers who come along. I shouldn't be able to claim the outpost as that's not my intention this time.

That would be pretty cool.

Robbmrp · July 2016

Since were on the topic of grappling hooks, why not add these in for PVE as well. They could incorporate these with the DB kill quests and let people infiltrate the large castles in the land. That would be really neat to scale a wall while on an assassination quest. They would need to limit it to a certain size of building to be able to use them but would add in a really fun element for sure.

This reminds me of the old days with Ninja's on Shogun Total war. When sending in a Ninja to do an assassination on a general and they would play the animation of scaling a wall... fun times...

sluice · July 2016

Robbmrp wrote: »

I really hope they add in something like this. To be able to infiltrate a keep via rope/ladder/siege tower etc would help bring more variety to PVP. They need to consider these things as siege though so you couldn't have 20 siege as well as a bunch of hooks about. Maybe .5 siege or so, then ever 2 grappling hooks would count as 1 siege or something like that.

I'd also rather have this ability to use at any time instead of just when the keeps flagged although you cannot take a keep with it. For example, I arrive at Nikel and there's no one there buy guards. I toss up my hook and climb up to the top and stealth when available. Then I can lie in wait for unsuspecting travelers who come along. I shouldn't be able to claim the outpost as that's not my intention this time.

That would be pretty cool.

That would be pretty cool, but I'm worried that in this form, it could easily be abused.
Although we could argue that people can already get ganked anywhere outside of the outpost.

Anyway, that is why, I was suggesting to only be able to grapple when the castle is flagged.

Maybe if as soon as someone grapples the ressources becomes tagged?
Having enough NPC's guarding the grapple location would also make it harder for one to actually grapple away.

But that brings me the questions, how to avoid large group grappling to the top all the time?

Sandman929 · July 2016

Grappling should take time, limited hooks to a keep or outpost, and one person per hook at a time. I think it could be implemented in a way that makes siege more dynamic and interesting as this sort of high risk move away from the siege line as an ambush maneuver.
Attackers would be vulnerable while climbing, so they'd have to pick your spots wisely, and defenders would have to patrol.

Robbmrp · July 2016

Sandman929 wrote: »

Grappling should take time, limited hooks to a keep or outpost, and one person per hook at a time. I think it could be implemented in a way that makes siege more dynamic and interesting as this sort of high risk move away from the siege line as an ambush maneuver.
Attackers would be vulnerable while climbing, so they'd have to pick your spots wisely, and defenders would have to patrol.

As @Sandman929 mentioned, they should take time to get up and also have maybe a player max limit. Say 5-20 seconds to climb up depending on height, it should be realistic but also not take forever. No more than 2 players can use the same hook and only 2 hooks maximum on outposts and 4 on keeps within a 30 minute period could be used. If after 30 minutes there's still no door/wall down from siege then no more hooks could be used. This would allow in a limited number of people to disrupt things and should help to keep it under control for abuse.

We couldn't have the keep "flag" from the use of grappling hooks as that's how you can then jump on the flags and flip the keep.

Since this is a way into a keep/outpost with no siege, these should be more expensive than regular siege. Say 5-10k for a single rope. They could also be reusable up to a set number of uses, maybe 2-5 at most.

yodased · July 2016

They should either be limited or cost you siege, like each rope counts as 5 towards your 20

sluice · July 2016

yodased wrote: »

They should either be limited or cost you siege, like each rope counts as 5 towards your 20

If more than one person can use the rope, yes it makes sens.

Or if 1 rope can only be used by 1 person, it could count as 1 siege for X minutes.
This way, you avoid having 15 guys climbing on top while there are 10+ sieges bringing down a wall.

dodgehopper_ESO · July 2016

We should be able to cut ropes or attempt to knock over ladders too, and this would of course be perfect for boiling oil.

sluice · July 2016

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

We should be able to cut ropes or attempt to knock over ladders too, and this would of course be perfect for boiling oil.

If ropes/ladders can be used by more than one player, definitely.

Rohamad_Ali · July 2016

I like the idea but I also like to know if a keep is under attack . If a NPC spots anyone scaling a keep an alert on the keep icon would be nice . An alert icon different from the under attack and burst icon .

MoreDino · July 2016

I'd rather it take a skill slot than be an ap costing consumable. Would be bad enough getting full raids (and most likely more than that) bypassing keep siege easily. Something like this needs to be detrimental to the ones using it in some way.

I know you guys are thinking of small group play when you suggest this, and that's cool. I personally don't have an issue with it, but let's be honest, it'll never work.

sluice · July 2016

MoreDino wrote: »

I'd rather it take a skill slot than be an ap costing consumable. Would be bad enough getting full raids (and most likely more than that) bypassing keep siege easily. Something like this needs to be detrimental to the ones using it in some way.

I know you guys are thinking of small group play when you suggest this, and that's cool. I personally don't have an issue with it, but let's be honest, it'll never work.

Not a bad idea, but it's so simple to hide in a corner and change your skill afterward.
Make it cost an ultimate! lol

MoreDino · July 2016

The solve for that would be getting flagged as in combat any time you're within an enemy keep's walls (including during normal siege). That way, if you want to leave combat/make build changes you have to leave the keep. But with the way things get coded around here, I wouldn't trust that to not make stuck in combat glitches even more prevalent.

Sandman929 · July 2016

MoreDino wrote: »

I'd rather it take a skill slot than be an ap costing consumable. Would be bad enough getting full raids (and most likely more than that) bypassing keep siege easily. Something like this needs to be detrimental to the ones using it in some way.

I know you guys are thinking of small group play when you suggest this, and that's cool. I personally don't have an issue with it, but let's be honest, it'll never work.

This. It's a dream. This is a whole new mechanic proposal when existing mechanics still don't work.

Robbmrp · July 2016

It would be better for coding to work the same as other siege weapons. It should cost AP and not be a skill that can be learned. It's a viable way into a keep other than siege so it should be pricy AP as well.

joshhh_nb · July 2016

They should make walls higher too so if you grt knocked down whilst you climb or are at the top you die

adds some risk into climbing walls.

This could also fix the leap/ambush into keeps problem.

Enodoc · July 2016

This was almost certainly on the design board pre-launch. If you look at some of the concept art for keeps, there are a number of "hook points" on the battlements. I wonder what the reason was for them not being implemented; maybe now would be the time to finish development of that feature.

PeggymoeXD · July 2016

I actually find this interesting. Only problem is that ZOS has trouble implementing interesting mechanics without totally screwing them up for the first 6 months at least. So I'd rather stick with the repetitive system we have now than worry about players using ZOS' mess ups as another way to exploit.

sluice · July 2016

@Enodoc,

Woah, that's awesome!

Hopefully they bring that idea back!
But until then, if we make enough noise in this thread, perhaps we will get their attention.

KisoValley · July 2016

We have grappling hooks. They're called gap closers, theres even different types!

Enodoc · July 2016

KisoValley wrote: »

We have grappling hooks. They're called gap closers, theres even different types!

Did you read the OP? The idea is to implement something that is actually designed to get you over walls once the gap closer issue is fixed.

DPG76 · July 2016

Not bad , but i think this would unbalance siege combat , it's like you'd take away those walls .
If it's not limited to a certain number attackers would swarm the keep and making the walls useless

Chuga_Rei · July 2016

Really the only important part about the walls is to hold the keep until actual player defense can arrive. After players are there a lot of times the best thing to do with the walls is let them fall and create a kill zone in the area they are forced to try and swarm through.

honestly the only time a outter wall is important for keep defense is if you have the manpower to counter siege the attackers into withdrawing. and if thats the case its usually better to sally and hit them with siege support.

if this allowed you to enter the keep but not completely by pass choke points I think it would be great.

Robbmrp · July 2016

DeepPlayGamer wrote: »

Not bad , but i think this would unbalance siege combat , it's like you'd take away those walls .
If it's not limited to a certain number attackers would swarm the keep and making the walls useless

@DeepPlayGamer that's why it would be limited to a certain number of hooks per keep/outpost and a max player count using them. No more than 2-4 players need to be in an outpost and 6-8 within a keep. If they went with 2 hooks per outpost and 4 hooks per keep with those player limitations it would work out really well.

Molag_Crow · July 2016

I hope so! awesome idea.

DPG76 · July 2016

Robbmrp wrote: »

DeepPlayGamer wrote: »

Not bad , but i think this would unbalance siege combat , it's like you'd take away those walls .
If it's not limited to a certain number attackers would swarm the keep and making the walls useless

@DeepPlayGamer that's why it would be limited to a certain number of hooks per keep/outpost and a max player count using them. No more than 2-4 players need to be in an outpost and 6-8 within a keep. If they went with 2 hooks per outpost and 4 hooks per keep with those player limitations it would work out really well.

Could work , just thinking about the moment one climbs up he could be blocked off or pushed back while in combat and make it arguable if the one who enters would be immune for a second or two to make the move in or not. Also i guess we could countermeasure with a smaller boiling oil vat that is less OP than the regular ?
Another argument is to make players vulnerable to siege weapon damage , otherwise it'd be easy to climb and take a wall with support from siege weapon .

DPG76 · July 2016

I mean by players vulnerability to FRIENDLY siege weapon fire

Rohamad_Ali · July 2016

They've also Datamined more hook points recently . Some siege hooks as well .

Enodoc · July 2016

Roehamad_Ali wrote: »

They've also Datamined more hook points recently . Some siege hooks as well .

Those "recently" datamined icons for hookpoints have been there since launch. They're remnants of the system I mentioned above that existed during development but never made it in.