IDEA: Built-in defensive siege capabilities for Keeps

Jimmy · February 2019

IDEA: Built in defensive capabilities for Keeps

With all the talk about siege equipment being too powerful now, and the supporters of this usually cite defensive reasons, I thought about something that may help the PvP objectives in Cyrodiil.

IMO, keeps need to have "BUILT IN" defensive capabilities. That stay on the Keep walls & towers. They should not be moveable. And they should be stronger (health and damage) than the mobile, player equipment, siege equipment.

They can be destroyed and repaired by other siege equipment, but as mentioned, stronger than player equipped mobile siege.

This would, give defenders of a keep, a slight advantage, as it SHOULD be. Keep defenders should always have the upper advantage.

Solariken · February 2019

Yes, Keeps should have built-in siege equipment to help with defense. (New Proposal)

I love the idea. Maybe ballistae on the tallest battlements (keep corner towers) and an oil pot over the inner front door.

TheBonesXXX · February 2019

I'm all for supporting people's style of play. Some people have nerve damage, some people have had strokes, brain damage. I'd just like to see the variety so everyone has something to enjoy with that said..

This would be an interesting chain of pace.

VaranisArano · February 2019

Keeps already have NPCs.

The NPCs aren't designed to keep out determined attackers or large groups, but they certainly do slow down small groups. And they do assist defenders - as any attacking raid who's eaten a guard-thrown negate on the ram or on the flag can testify.

That being said, this is a player vs player game. The NPCs are there to back up the defenders, not do their job for them. If enough defenders don't show up in time, that keep is lost.

I'm afraid I dont see the appeal of built in defensive siege. If I'm a lone defender of a keep or in a small group defending, my job is simple: slow down the enemy as much as possible and yell in zone chat for reinforcements.

I can accomplish the first with reasonable effectiveness with the siege already available to me. My siege alone won't save the keep, but when a small group plays smart and uses siege effectively, they and the NPCs can sometimes slow the enemy enough for player reinforcements to arrive. Which IMO, is how it should be. Keep defense should rely primarily on player action, and the current system where players have to use defensive siege intelligently to defend and slow the enemy is a good system for that, and where saving a keep with outnumbered defenders requires reinforcements.

I don't see how giving keeps "turrets" where players can hole up and fire extra powerful siege helps promote a player vs player gameplay.

TBH, the best way ZOS can get more defenders to show up is to increase AP for defenses. The patch where we got big ticks at defenses? Everyone rushed to defend.

xxthir13enxx · February 2019

Yes, Keeps should have built-in siege equipment to help with defense. (New Proposal)

Hmm...as an Addendum to the proposal ...please Remove the postern platforms that were added on the walls as these seem to do nothing but interfere with defenders targeting of attackers....one big hit box that interferes with skills

Kulvar · February 2019

No, Keeps should stay bare boned with only doors as defense. (Current Game)

No need for built-in defenses, players should build them.

NordSwordnBoard · February 2019

No, Keeps should stay bare boned with only doors as defense. (Current Game)

I'd rather see player defenders need to make supply runs to the resources to provide an additional bonus to their respective category. It would be more involved than playing turret defense.

For example you push a ram-like supply cart object from the keep to the resource & back to the keep to get your guards/walls/door to level 5. The supply run itself can give AP to those involved. Others have suggested something like this before iirc.

Jimmy · February 2019

Yes, Keeps should have built-in siege equipment to help with defense. (New Proposal)

To those arguing NPC's as defense...

NPC's are a joke.

I guess an alternative proposal would be to BUFF NPC's big time. I can solo the NPC's. That's not defense at all. To consider NPC's anything other that cosmetic decorations around a keep is a stretch.

Heimpai · February 2019

Yes, Keeps should have built-in siege equipment to help with defense. (New Proposal)

Jimmy wrote: »

To those arguing NPC's as defense...

NPC's are a joke.

I guess an alternative proposal would be to BUFF NPC's big time. I can solo the NPC's. That's not defense at all. To consider NPC's anything other that cosmetic decorations around a keep is a stretch.

Duo a keep then go on to solo the scroll after, didn’t need siege to kill the guards either 😂

Korah_Eaglecry · February 2019

Yes, Keeps should have built-in siege equipment to help with defense. (New Proposal)

Ive always felt as if the keep walls are a bit barren and while I like that its up to the defenders to put up the defense, and their decisions playing a part in whether they succeed or not. I do think that often enough sieges of keeps are too easy and over too fast. Often enough because of the way PvP is structured the defenders wont even know of the siege until the attackers are already at the inner keeps doors. Most of my time in Cyrodiil hitting keeps is a quick and effortless frontdoor -a- thon.

I dont want to see keeps become impenetrable fortresses. But I wish ZOS would take a harder look at how keeps are interacted with by the players and make some changes to make them more difficult. Stationary defenses might provide some assistance with this.

Korah_Eaglecry · February 2019

Yes, Keeps should have built-in siege equipment to help with defense. (New Proposal)

VaranisArano wrote: »

Keeps already have NPCs.

The NPCs aren't designed to keep out determined attackers or large groups, but they certainly do slow down small groups. And they do assist defenders - as any attacking raid who's eaten a guard-thrown negate on the ram or on the flag can testify.

That being said, this is a player vs player game. The NPCs are there to back up the defenders, not do their job for them. If enough defenders don't show up in time, that keep is lost.

I'm afraid I dont see the appeal of built in defensive siege. If I'm a lone defender of a keep or in a small group defending, my job is simple: slow down the enemy as much as possible and yell in zone chat for reinforcements.

I can accomplish the first with reasonable effectiveness with the siege already available to me. My siege alone won't save the keep, but when a small group plays smart and uses siege effectively, they and the NPCs can sometimes slow the enemy enough for player reinforcements to arrive. Which IMO, is how it should be. Keep defense should rely primarily on player action, and the current system where players have to use defensive siege intelligently to defend and slow the enemy is a good system for that, and where saving a keep with outnumbered defenders requires reinforcements.

I don't see how giving keeps "turrets" where players can hole up and fire extra powerful siege helps promote a player vs player gameplay.

TBH, the best way ZOS can get more defenders to show up is to increase AP for defenses. The patch where we got big ticks at defenses? Everyone rushed to defend.

The only attackers being slowed down by NPCs are those running past the keep on to the next target. Small groups are just as if not more effective at breaching keeps than larger ones. They almost always get into the inner keep before someone notices and can respond because no ones on the look out for small groups.

VaranisArano · February 2019

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Keeps already have NPCs.

The NPCs aren't designed to keep out determined attackers or large groups, but they certainly do slow down small groups. And they do assist defenders - as any attacking raid who's eaten a guard-thrown negate on the ram or on the flag can testify.

That being said, this is a player vs player game. The NPCs are there to back up the defenders, not do their job for them. If enough defenders don't show up in time, that keep is lost.

I'm afraid I dont see the appeal of built in defensive siege. If I'm a lone defender of a keep or in a small group defending, my job is simple: slow down the enemy as much as possible and yell in zone chat for reinforcements.

I can accomplish the first with reasonable effectiveness with the siege already available to me. My siege alone won't save the keep, but when a small group plays smart and uses siege effectively, they and the NPCs can sometimes slow the enemy enough for player reinforcements to arrive. Which IMO, is how it should be. Keep defense should rely primarily on player action, and the current system where players have to use defensive siege intelligently to defend and slow the enemy is a good system for that, and where saving a keep with outnumbered defenders requires reinforcements.

I don't see how giving keeps "turrets" where players can hole up and fire extra powerful siege helps promote a player vs player gameplay.

TBH, the best way ZOS can get more defenders to show up is to increase AP for defenses. The patch where we got big ticks at defenses? Everyone rushed to defend.

The only attackers being slowed down by NPCs are those running past the keep on to the next target. Small groups are just as if not more effective at breaching keeps than larger ones. They almost always get into the inner keep before someone notices and can respond because no ones on the look out for small groups.

The NPCs aren't supposed to stop or slow down groups of players on their own.

They do help when defenders are present, assuming there's not a huge disparity of numbers (in which case the outcome is inevitable with or without NPCs).

As far as I'm concerned, the current set-up in Cyrodiil makes player action the primary cause for a keep capture to succeed or fail. Do the defending players notice the keep is under attack before it flags, use siege tactically, and call for reinforcements while trying to slow down the enemy and keep them off the flags? Do the reinforcements arrive in time to make a difference? That's what actually determines whether a keep is won or lost.

I don't see the appeal of giving defenders free, powerful siege emplacements. Well, okay, I do. Its really appealing to the type of player who's alone in a back keep, watching an organized raid throw down 20/20 siege and yelling in zone chat "AD raid at Kingscreat!!!" I know, I've been that player, going, "Okay, if I oil them on the door, I'll die, so quick run to the inner and set up oils over the door, and hope reinforcements get here..." I see where the idea of "Ooh, I'll hop on that powerful siege weapon and blast them all!" looks appealing. Getting run over by a raid while depending on the rest of your faction to show up to save the keep kinda sucks sometimes.

But I don't think the solution is that I, as that lone player, need more powerful siege. I'm a lone player or maybe I've got a small group there that's outnumbered. I am dependent on the other players of my faction to bring more force to bear, but that doesn't mean I don't play a crucial role in the keep's defense. I play my part, and sometimes my faction shows up and its awesome. Or I play my part, and my faction doesn't show up in time, and so I join the force that shows up to take the keep back. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.

So here's my question:

What are players struggling with about defending that they want extra-powerful defensive siege to make it easier for them to defend?

Again, the best solution I've seen to get players to show up to defend keeps tooth and nail was during the patch when we got large AP ticks for defenses. Everyone showed up to defend and fought hard. It was a pretty good response to PvDoor as well, because as soon as someone called out the attack, everyone was quick to bring reinforcements to chase that D tick.

Temeraire507 · February 2019

Yes, Keeps should have built-in siege equipment to help with defense. (New Proposal)

Those nice defenses won't help you though if none of your allies show up because they simply don't care. So maybe increase AP ticks for defending to a point where players actually want to work hard to defend.

Maybe also increase the overall HP of keep parts and give us a auto message informing us about the attack on a certain HP threshold of the defenses and gives us more info about the enemy at a certain lower HP threshold. That would make the job of a scout less meaningful tho. Maybe also give us stronger NPC controlled defenses, to help reinforces arrive before the keep falls.

Still that's an awesome idea. And just like I mentioned here:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/461070/about-this-siege-change-proposal/p2

I like sieging castles and siege weapons in this game in general but it is really boring to just left click on everything. For me it comes down to this:

Siege weapons should be really strong. And therefor also hit very hard.
You should still be able to use abilities and quickslots while standing on a siege weapon.
Using a siege weapon should be interactive as you would technically need to load it, set it up, aim it and then fire it and hope it hits where you wanted it to hit. It should also be possible to do it faster with more people working on it.
There should just be one ballista, catapult and trebuchet of the same type (no need for a difference between fire trebuchets and normal ones). Maybe they could add different types for each (like a smaller and a larger type).
A siege weapon should have different ammunition you can load into it (partially based on the type of weapon and on the subcategory if there are any) like you can load your ballista with the common big arrows but then they only deal massive damage against siege weapons or keep doors (or directly hit players) or with something like containers filled with something like greek fire that deal massive AoE fire damage over time to everything hit (except stone structures like walls that shouldn't take a substantial amount of damage from it) but have the downside of being able not to activate properly, not being very precise and maybe being able to activate when you are hit by enemies with fire.
Enable us to put siege weapons behind the embrasures in the walls of a keep to use them without being targetable by the attackers but at the cost of a lot of line of sight.
Create new NPC's defending the keep with 5-10 siege weapons even if no player is inside. (Don't count those for the max amount that can be set up)
Increase the amount of siege weapons players can build up but make trebuchets and catapults the best option to siege a wall by far if used with stones that don't do any AoE damage and ballistas a strong counter against them for the defenders.
Make gatehouses actually have two gates and a portcullis (which is completely immune to anything fire based).
Make oil leave the ground burning for a few seconds.
Give us more counter against oil than purge (I think of a movable siege shields comparable to the rams we currently have). Maybe make it nonpurgeable (I am not really sure if I am for or against this).
Maybe give us small movable walls we can place in the world to have protection against siege weapons and ranged enemies
Make siege weapons hit a bit more randomly than exactly where you aimed at.
Make siege weapons spawn empty instead of loaded.
Make people need to push their siege weapon into the direction they want to aim at instead of the weapon automatically rotating if you want to shoot in a different direction.

Holy cow that list is long. And I'm sure people will come up with more.

Gives us overall a better siege weapon experience please. I would really appreciate it.

Jimmy · March 2019

Yes, Keeps should have built-in siege equipment to help with defense. (New Proposal)

Temeraire507 wrote: »

Those nice defenses won't help you though if none of your allies show up because they simply don't care. So maybe increase AP ticks for defending to a point where players actually want to work hard to defend.

For some reason I though maybe Wrathstone or Elsywer did increase AP ticks for defending a keep?

On a side note, thanks to all who is voting and contributing

ArchMikem · March 2019

Yes, Keeps should have built-in siege equipment to help with defense. (New Proposal)

I'm imagining double bolt Ballista Turrets.

The Elder Scrolls Online

IDEA: Built-in defensive siege capabilities for Keeps

IDEA: Built-in defensive siege capabilities for Keeps 31 votes