1. I mentioned the obvious problem with NPC health ages ago. It's ridiculous that it wasn't fixed.
There was a misunderstanding on my part as to which mobs were being used, and the wrong mobs were initially buffed a while back. This has been fixed now.
allow healing but no bal/eq moves for the objective channel. This is really unfeasible as-is if there is literally any resistance/siege, especially netthrowers.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
We've changed siege engines around a bit. During a raid they will be limited to shooting 5 rooms away, will fail more frequently, and will occasionally miss. We'll be monitoring to see what this change does and modify accordingly.
Also killing a mob raid target should now call assassins on the killer.
We've changed siege engines around a bit. During a raid they will be limited to shooting 5 rooms away, will fail more frequently, and will occasionally miss. We'll be monitoring to see what this change does and modify accordingly.
Also killing a mob raid target should now call assassins on the killer.
Fair warning, wall of text ahead...
I really wanted to test this before saying anything, to be sure to avoid making sweeping assumptions.
But this just doesn't really solve the issue. I took my five most artied dudes to test just now and the moment we hit a siegeline we lost one of them within two rounds then the second right after. This was before dealing with the defending team, and the entire rest of the raid would be on said siegeline. Here's the problem:
Five siege weapons is 300-500 unblockable a round, with lower damage coming with either a ~7 second writhe or a boltthrower that will throw a party member all the way down the siegeline. You could argue that the miss/failure rate offsets this: but relying on rng not to ruin your day for 90% of the raid just isn't tenable.
Cannons break walls, so there is no counterplay to this( though walls would still be insufficient, both due to time constraints and multiple exits not being viable to maintain coverage on against someone with a clue, etc). This is on top of standard guards (which I think are actually reasonable now after the last lot of changes). That's the passive defence, and it is pretty amazing on its own. Note: this damage needs to be dealable with indefinitely. Every city bar Ithaqua has a gigantic siegeline, and all but one objective (bina) are going to require you to spend a good amount of time on said siegeline dragging/pushing (not 100% on Celidon, assume I'm talking about Kinsarmar/Antioch/Khandava unless stated otherwise). One of the people (the drag/pusher) is not going to be curing during this time. They could cure between drag/push ticks, but time constraints are a huge deal here if fighting against a resisting team.
I'm also going to come out and say it: siege isn't fun to fight. Getting shredded by random passives just isn't interesting. There's no way to fight this better, because the way siege is set up you're not meant to fight it. I'm 99% sure that getting past a properly set up intersection won't happen: if you put siege weapons east and west of kinsarmar crossroads, all around victory circle and the Ithaqua junction, people are not getting through that room unless they have the luck of the devil. Siege is currently very suboptimal, as all cities are still built for the old standard siegeline setups. Once people figure out optimal builds, siege should reallistically be able to shut down raids on its own. Antioch, Kinsarmar, Ithaqua can 100% do this. Khandava might be able to, I'm not familiar with the new layout enough to say for certain. If you have an intersection anywhere on your line that an objective must pass through to leave, , you're golden. Some cities (Antioch, Kinsarmar) are fortunate enough to have multiples of these on the same line.
Of course, the argument is you could split your team to break a siegeline while someone drags. This is likely the last thing to try and is what we will probably do next, but I am 99% sure due to time constraints (and general numerical ones when it comes to raid group sizes), this is nonviable, and will only become progressively more so if it becomes apparent its the only way to succeed against a resisting team.
That said, the guard changes are a vast improvement and they feel like you have options now, as people aren't getting one shot randomly as a clot walks in, etc.
Would be interested to hear thoughts on this from the other circles.
Demonic hasn't raided since the last set of changes (the -25% move time one) because I didn't want to commit against siege lines + 10 guard clots with anything resembling an actual defense after we failed at doing it against no opposition. 5 rooms is still enough to take a fair amount of damage, and the relatively close circle balance at the moment across most timezones (plus the tendency for people to stick their noses in ) means it's still immensely weighed in the defender's favor.
Also, Aranel auto-aggroed on us in the last raid, and she hits like a monster. Dealing with her + patrols + siege would likely need a good handful of people spamming desublimators and a couple people to protect the guy on objective, then you will usually have at least 1-2 people who will try to defend. Killing the guards is too time-consuming to be an option for whittling down defenders, especially with them being able to shield :<
Maybe drop the siege range down more, turn objective movement into a soft channel (like shard harvesting), make guards more vulnerable to criticals? Dragging should definitely stop the raid NPC from attacking, and mob shields need to be breakable
I'm torn on whether the time needs to be messed with. I honestly like the small time window since it's easier to know I won't have to suddenly afk mid-conflict. I could maybe stand for the cooldown to go down to 12h if not down to 8h. The diminishing debuff near the end mostly feels like the end of the raid, too, so I wouldn't mind seeing it go.
Yeah, we actually tried the standard this time because Aranel kept almost murdering our dragger (and you basically require either someone to draw her aggro or to be a terror aspect, because she fears too, so you get feared out mid drag etc). I have no idea if the other city's mobs are comparable to her, but agree re: the aggro should drop on drag.
Also agree the cooldown could go down, since you're still constrained by energy (though I'm not sure how much more often you'd raid for that reason anyway). Maybe you could spend shards to reduce the cooldown by up to 50% for that purpose, for those cases where you really want to try to get that second raid for some reason.
Did not realise guard healers still healed players. I don't know how I feel about that at all, need to think on it more. I don't know how less insanely stacked teams would handle it, is my main concern. We did in our last raid (and I didn't realise it was happening until it was mentioned to me) because the kills came very fast.
We've had to change the tutor aggro every time. Ineli throws up icewalls and it's super annoying, but with the change to dragging/pushing that is far inferior to fear.
Siege is still too powerful.
I'm against being able to reduce/reducing the raid cooldown, unless you are unable to raid the same city in that 24 hour period still. Defending is not optional, but I'll do it once a day even if I don't want to. But I wouldn't be thrilled if in order to prevent doing it twice/more a day my circle will have to consistently win shard fights/bother with affinity less etc etc.
I've only been minimally able to test the guards in a raid, but so far the changes/bug fixes have been alright.
Jules has been wanting to test healing, we'll check it out. However, guard patrols are now limited to 9 maximum if you want to have any control over which guards are in a room. A defender with 9 guards, who chooses to have all 9 help with healing instead of helping attack/hinder raiders is an advantage I like (especially considering raid defenders have no control over the size of their group) in general but idk how the mechanic works. If it heals multiple people or goes randomly or the tick or anything.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
The problem is you only need one healer, because the healer will keep any focussed target at full health unless you can kill that person within the tick window. That window is very, very small. Multiple healers are pretty much redundant for this purpose.
Ok, so more changes to siege went in. If you have miasma you should be pretty well protected. Still somewhat protected if not. Let me know what you think.
Guards scattered that definitely didn't qualify to scatter and I had the bug once again where it would not recognize the leader of a squad when they were standing in the room.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
9 ) (2017/02/15 21:09) Oystir: "Raids: I was pushing the objective east with nobody in the room for a while, for most of the channel. Septus entered the room, killed me, and began to push the objective west. Apparently my time pushing the objective east credited his time pushing it to the west, because the objective moved within seconds. This happened twice. Shouldn't the channel reset if you change the direction of the push?" 10) (2017/02/15 21:09) Jules: "Oh ----." 11) (2017/02/15 21:09) Oystir: "Guard243100 dispersed last night during the raid and somehow ended up in a locked house. Also I mentioned the guards in the sewers. I feel like they should remain in the city proper, and at least not enter houses." 12) (2017/02/15 21:09) Oystir: "Real bugs." 13) (2017/02/15 21:10) Oystir: "GUARDS: The guards definitely scattered when there were less than 10 in a room and are completely unuseable after they scatter. I have tried manually regrouping them during raids but it is not really possible, they do not regroup and begin working with squad commands. It would be really nice if I could like, call my guards and have them attempt to come to me even if it's in a raid. CALL FOR HELP called so many guards that they began to spam entering/leaving and never stayed in the room to help. I also had a similar problem as in bug 62346 where I attempted to order a squad to move while standing in the room with the squad leader and it failed." 14) (2017/02/15 21:10) Oystir: "And then I commented that it happened again." 15) (2017/02/15 21:10) Oystir: "In the squad with guards in the sewers, I am standing in the room with the squad leader, but when I order the squad to move, it tells me The leader for that squad is not here. I try to reassign him to the leader of the squad but it says he is not assigned to that squad. If I reassign him to the squad, then to the leader position, and then try to order the squad, I still get the message that The leader for that squad is not here." 16) (2017/02/15 21:11) Oystir: "That one happened during and after the raid." 17) (2017/02/15 21:11) Jules: "Ugh." 18) (2017/02/15 21:11) Oystir: "I am fixing this manually right now, but several guards from one of my squads that dispersed last night during the raid have not returned to normal guard behavior. When I order the squad to standguard in a room, which I did last night and this morning, they remained scattered in groups of nine and do not attempt to return to the squad until I manually move them. Also some of them went into the sewers." 19) (2017/02/15 21:11) Oystir: "That's all of them." 20) (2017/02/15 21:11) Oystir: "Nbd."
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
I'm looking into the guards being derpy, but they are more complicated as their code is messy from all the changes over the years. So it may take a larger overhaul than the previous changes.
Yesterday @Septus, @Siath and I raided Kinsarmar and got the statue out of the city, upon getting it out of the city we were no longer able to move it, and the raid didn't end. After waiting for the raid to end, the Statue reset and nothing else happened. No update to Topcities, as far as I'm aware they still have access to their sewers, and we certainly don't have the statue. So what's up with that?
Yesterday @Septus, @Siath and I raided Kinsarmar and got the statue out of the city, upon getting it out of the city we were no longer able to move it, and the raid didn't end. After waiting for the raid to end, the Statue reset and nothing else happened. No update to Topcities, as far as I'm aware they still have access to their sewers, and we certainly don't have the statue. So what's up with that?
Yeah. I saw that. It will be fixed shortly. Clearly something broke with all the tweaks lately. I will update everyone shortly.
A Bardic healer's arrival from the east is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the east. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. A Bardic healer's arrival from the in is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. H:610/610 M:302/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] You grab Aranel, the Archivist around the neck and begin dragging to the in. H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] (Ring): You say, "Moving in with Aranel, the Archivist." H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] You may drink another healing elixir. H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] (Ring): Theophilus says, "Target: ultrix." H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] A Bardic healer's arrival from the down is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. A Bardic healer's arrival from the in is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] You are again able to clot your wounds properly. H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] You suddenly perceive the vague outline of an aura of rebounding around Alvetta. H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] You may eat another toadstool. H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] A Bardic healer's arrival from the west is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the east. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south.
H:610/610 M:291/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] [] A Bardic healer's arrival from the down is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. Hand moving to his sword, a Runeguard Knight walks off to the west. A Bardic healer's arrival from the west is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. A Bardic healer's arrival from the north is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. A Bardic healer's arrival from the in is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. Hand moving to his sword, a Runeguard Knight walks off to the west. A Bardic healer's arrival from the south is preceded by a crescendo of harp music. Accompanied by the sound of metal, a Runeguard Knight enters from the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the east. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in. The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down. Accompanied by the sound of metal, a Runeguard Knight enters from the in. Hand moving to his sword, a Runeguard Knight walks off to the in. Accompanied by the sound of metal, a Runeguard Knight enters from the west. H:610/610 M:291/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
really dislike the raiding system when my guards are crippled by bugs. We sat out yesterday's raid because it was the fourth raid in a row with no change to broken guards which would be the only way we could feasibly put up a defense when there was only Jules, Bellini and me to defend. Zzz.
also mentioning again the timer channel on moving the objectives being reset. It'd be cool to be able to push the objective without that being potentially advantageous to the raiders.
Edit: And I know I'm grouchy but I am. This has been a big problem for me every day this week. >:(
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
So wall of bugs and guard bugs be damned. People didn't defend that could have due to bugs, but let's award an objective anyway. Offensive bugs > Defensive bugs = Not optimal
I'm just going to quickly post something small: if everyone who had been around to defend when we got the statue had defended, we would have had 0 hope of getting the statue out of the city (as it was, only Curran defended). The guards are still strong enough that even without players defending they pose a very real threat. The comparison of the guard bugs and the statue bugging are farcical, one makes it harder to defend, but still the easier job overall. The other made it impossible to win, despite meeting the stated win condition.
Point is when things are broken and reported and fix takes too long people stop wanting to bludgeon their heads against the same walls, regardless of outcome...
The bug I'd try to fix immediately is the one that makes defending with a team that can't fight back meaningfully REALLY dicey. You can very, very easily end up helping the enemy in that situation. This is the bug that Oystir mentioned a couple times where your push/drag/beckon can end up credited to the enemy team.
This happened to me last night (I'd been pushing, along with other members of our team), but when I died and Septus started dragging the other way, he was credited with all of our push time (it often hits before you even get to the river, which is how Oystir saw it, and how I was able to see it for myself).
In the meantime, I might try to counter the bug by setting up some timers and having our team truly focus on fighting back until an appropriate moment when we can basically try to "steal" their push, (but the tracking there is going to be a bit tricky there, at least for me). I'd sure like it better if it was just fixed though. Okay... I was never here.
EDIT: as well, more than one team has got an objective to a giant clot of guards just inside the gate (which also does a really, really good job of making it impossible to win). This whole thing has been (and still is, for sure) a progression towards making it more more "possible" to win, without making it too easy. Right?
The key distinction is that there's a big difference between coming close to winning and winning. Regardless of if people didn't feel up to defending or not, Antioch won that raid: at the end of the day, that is irrefutible. It might suck (losing usually does), but I can 100% guarantee anyone who had won a raid would expect to get the objective, and rightfully so. If Kinsarmar had stolen Antioch's statue instead and things had bugged out, I'd be first in line saying they should get it: because that's what both parties expected to happen if said objective got outside the gates. Noone went into that raid with any illusions about what the reward/cost would be to winning or losing.
Regarding the push/drag timer, that'd need to be per direction tracking rather than a hard reset, or you could just interrupt/push to balancelessly reset progress. I think that needs to happen though for sure.
I really don't care if you have the statue, which I think was pretty obvious when I decided to do nothing to stop you. I just care that the not insignificant bugs I put in 2-3 raids before weren't fixed, preventing me from feeling like we could defend, but your single problem to enable your win was prioritized and subsequently credited. Especially when the entire reason we did nothing was because of the bugs.
I appreciate Dec and Jeremy both for getting in touch about it though. I hope we will see some changes soon.
Edit: I mean some people care a lot that you have the statue. Not me. I'm cool.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
For the record, it wasn't a matter of prioritizing attack. It was prioritizing bugs that were easier to fix. As Dec noted, the guard issues are much more complex, due to the complexity of city defense as it has been modified over the years.
I do want to follow up on Oystir's last comment, as I was the other person there.
I think the statue is an objective that any player who doesn't get upset about things just for the sake of getting upset should be able to handle losing, and I thought Antioch taking the statue might finally push us to attempt a raid on Antioch itself (which I do want to try). We have raided quite a bit, but early on, Antioch and Kinsarmar had notoriously strong siege, and a really powerful guard setup. Later on, it's just been hard to get people to bite because the AM juggernaut is back in a big way.
I was also literally right in the middle of making myself some raid stuff (so I can see what's going on better, mainly) when the raid was initiated, and we really are defending daily. This was the first and only raid where we didn't fight like banshees, with whatever we had.
Anyway, like Oystir, I wasn't fussed about probably losing the statue. Because the statue is a pretty good "stick of gum" type objective. It's a good tool to encourage fighting, but it's not absolutely crushing if you lose it.
Most importantly, the push bug in particular really gave me pause in that situation (as I noted in my post above), and Oystir had just told me about it right before the raid began. We had Oystir, me, and tiny Bellini (and yes, poor Curran). I felt like that team in that situation, with that bug could very easily just end up helping push the statue out our own gate, which is rather silly.
With those considerations in mind, I also figured it would A ) be a nice "clean" run that would show just how long it takes to get an objective out even with no player resistance (it does still take quite a large chunk of the allotted raid time) and B ) more bugs might present themselves... In the words of the late, great James Doakes "surprise, redacted".
So I had miasma up and got absolutely owned by guards:
Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at once. Damage Taken: 70 cutting (raw damage: 147) -70 cutting Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at once. Damage Taken: 63 cutting (raw damage: 132) -63 cutting Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at once. Damage Taken: 82 blunt (raw damage: 171) -82 blunt An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. Damage Taken: 55 cutting (raw damage: 116) -55 cutting An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. Damage Taken: 72 blunt (raw damage: 152) -72 blunt An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. Damage Taken: 68 blunt (raw damage: 143) -68 blunt Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at once. Damage Taken: 86 blunt (raw damage: 179) -86 blunt An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. Damage Taken: 66 blunt (raw damage: 138) -66 blunt An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. You have been slain by an elite Runeguard Knight.
Literally one shot, not even time to heal in between.
H:669/669 M:467/480 K:0 D:1720 B:0 An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. Damage Taken: 49 cutting (raw damage: 139) Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at once. Damage Taken: 52 blunt (raw damage: 146) An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. Damage Taken: 53 blunt (raw damage: 149) An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. Damage Taken: 46 cutting (raw damage: 130) Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at once. Damage Taken: 52 blunt (raw damage: 147) An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. Damage Taken: 52 cutting (raw damage: 147) An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords forward to bury in you. Damage Taken: 50 blunt (raw damage: 141) Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at once. Damage Taken: 61 blunt (raw damage: 171) Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at once. Damage Taken: 61 blunt (raw damage: 172) H:190/669 M:467/480 K:0 D:1720 B:35
just so it's clear, I had Miasma up, and I am wearing Fullplate as well as surcoat/resist rings/all of my templar defenses. On top of that Healers make it literally impossible to kill any target they are healing. If you defend a raid at all, it is not possible for the raiders to succeed
Comments
Also killing a mob raid target should now call assassins on the killer.
I really wanted to test this before saying anything, to be sure to avoid making sweeping assumptions.
But this just doesn't really solve the issue. I took my five most artied dudes to test just now and the moment we hit a siegeline we lost one of them within two rounds then the second right after. This was before dealing with the defending team, and the entire rest of the raid would be on said siegeline. Here's the problem:
Five siege weapons is 300-500 unblockable a round, with lower damage coming with either a ~7 second writhe or a boltthrower that will throw a party member all the way down the siegeline. You could argue that the miss/failure rate offsets this: but relying on rng not to ruin your day for 90% of the raid just isn't tenable.
Cannons break walls, so there is no counterplay to this( though walls would still be insufficient, both due to time constraints and multiple exits not being viable to maintain coverage on against someone with a clue, etc). This is on top of standard guards (which I think are actually reasonable now after the last lot of changes). That's the passive defence, and it is pretty amazing on its own. Note: this damage needs to be dealable with indefinitely. Every city bar Ithaqua has a gigantic siegeline, and all but one objective (bina) are going to require you to spend a good amount of time on said siegeline dragging/pushing (not 100% on Celidon, assume I'm talking about Kinsarmar/Antioch/Khandava unless stated otherwise). One of the people (the drag/pusher) is not going to be curing during this time. They could cure between drag/push ticks, but time constraints are a huge deal here if fighting against a resisting team.
I'm also going to come out and say it: siege isn't fun to fight. Getting shredded by random passives just isn't interesting. There's no way to fight this better, because the way siege is set up you're not meant to fight it. I'm 99% sure that getting past a properly set up intersection won't happen: if you put siege weapons east and west of kinsarmar crossroads, all around victory circle and the Ithaqua junction, people are not getting through that room unless they have the luck of the devil. Siege is currently very suboptimal, as all cities are still built for the old standard siegeline setups. Once people figure out optimal builds, siege should reallistically be able to shut down raids on its own. Antioch, Kinsarmar, Ithaqua can 100% do this. Khandava might be able to, I'm not familiar with the new layout enough to say for certain. If you have an intersection anywhere on your line that an objective must pass through to leave, , you're golden. Some cities (Antioch, Kinsarmar) are fortunate enough to have multiples of these on the same line.
Of course, the argument is you could split your team to break a siegeline while someone drags. This is likely the last thing to try and is what we will probably do next, but I am 99% sure due to time constraints (and general numerical ones when it comes to raid group sizes), this is nonviable, and will only become progressively more so if it becomes apparent its the only way to succeed against a resisting team.
That said, the guard changes are a vast improvement and they feel like you have options now, as people aren't getting one shot randomly as a clot walks in, etc.
Would be interested to hear thoughts on this from the other circles.
Paging @Oystir @gjarrus @theophilus @anyoneelsewhoreadsthisthread.
Also, Aranel auto-aggroed on us in the last raid, and she hits like a monster. Dealing with her + patrols + siege would likely need a good handful of people spamming desublimators and a couple people to protect the guy on objective, then you will usually have at least 1-2 people who will try to defend. Killing the guards is too time-consuming to be an option for whittling down defenders, especially with them being able to shield :<
Maybe drop the siege range down more, turn objective movement into a soft channel (like shard harvesting), make guards more vulnerable to criticals? Dragging should definitely stop the raid NPC from attacking, and mob shields need to be breakable
I'm torn on whether the time needs to be messed with. I honestly like the small time window since it's easier to know I won't have to suddenly afk mid-conflict. I could maybe stand for the cooldown to go down to 12h if not down to 8h. The diminishing debuff near the end mostly feels like the end of the raid, too, so I wouldn't mind seeing it go.
Also agree the cooldown could go down, since you're still constrained by energy (though I'm not sure how much more often you'd raid for that reason anyway). Maybe you could spend shards to reduce the cooldown by up to 50% for that purpose, for those cases where you really want to try to get that second raid for some reason.
Did not realise guard healers still healed players. I don't know how I feel about that at all, need to think on it more. I don't know how less insanely stacked teams would handle it, is my main concern. We did in our last raid (and I didn't realise it was happening until it was mentioned to me) because the kills came very fast.
Siege is still too powerful.
I'm against being able to reduce/reducing the raid cooldown, unless you are unable to raid the same city in that 24 hour period still. Defending is not optional, but I'll do it once a day even if I don't want to. But I wouldn't be thrilled if in order to prevent doing it twice/more a day my circle will have to consistently win shard fights/bother with affinity less etc etc.
I've only been minimally able to test the guards in a raid, but so far the changes/bug fixes have been alright.
Jules has been wanting to test healing, we'll check it out. However, guard patrols are now limited to 9 maximum if you want to have any control over which guards are in a room. A defender with 9 guards, who chooses to have all 9 help with healing instead of helping attack/hinder raiders is an advantage I like (especially considering raid defenders have no control over the size of their group) in general but idk how the mechanic works. If it heals multiple people or goes randomly or the tick or anything.
9 ) (2017/02/15 21:09) Oystir: "Raids: I was pushing the objective east with nobody in the room for
a while, for most of the channel. Septus entered the room, killed me, and began to push the
objective west. Apparently my time pushing the objective east credited his time pushing it to the
west, because the objective moved within seconds. This happened twice. Shouldn't the channel reset
if you change the direction of the push?"
10) (2017/02/15 21:09) Jules: "Oh ----."
11) (2017/02/15 21:09) Oystir: "Guard243100 dispersed last night during the raid and somehow ended
up in a locked house. Also I mentioned the guards in the sewers. I feel like they should remain in
the city proper, and at least not enter houses."
12) (2017/02/15 21:09) Oystir: "Real bugs."
13) (2017/02/15 21:10) Oystir: "GUARDS: The guards definitely scattered when there were less than 10
in a room and are completely unuseable after they scatter. I have tried manually regrouping them
during raids but it is not really possible, they do not regroup and begin working with squad
commands. It would be really nice if I could like, call my guards and have them attempt to come to
me even if it's in a raid. CALL FOR HELP called so many guards that they began to spam
entering/leaving and never stayed in the room to help. I also had a similar problem as in bug 62346
where I attempted to order a squad to move while standing in the room with the squad leader and it
failed."
14) (2017/02/15 21:10) Oystir: "And then I commented that it happened again."
15) (2017/02/15 21:10) Oystir: "In the squad with guards in the sewers, I am standing in the room
with the squad leader, but when I order the squad to move, it tells me The leader for that squad is
not here. I try to reassign him to the leader of the squad but it says he is not assigned to that
squad. If I reassign him to the squad, then to the leader position, and then try to order the squad,
I still get the message that The leader for that squad is not here."
16) (2017/02/15 21:11) Oystir: "That one happened during and after the raid."
17) (2017/02/15 21:11) Jules: "Ugh."
18) (2017/02/15 21:11) Oystir: "I am fixing this manually right now, but several guards from one of
my squads that dispersed last night during the raid have not returned to normal guard behavior. When
I order the squad to standguard in a room, which I did last night and this morning, they remained
scattered in groups of nine and do not attempt to return to the squad until I manually move them.
Also some of them went into the sewers."
19) (2017/02/15 21:11) Oystir: "That's all of them."
20) (2017/02/15 21:11) Oystir: "Nbd."
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the east.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
A Bardic healer's arrival from the in is preceded by a crescendo of harp music.
H:610/610 M:302/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
You grab Aranel, the Archivist around the neck and begin dragging to the in.
H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
(Ring): You say, "Moving in with Aranel, the Archivist."
H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
You may drink another healing elixir.
H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
(Ring): Theophilus says, "Target: ultrix."
H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
A Bardic healer's arrival from the down is preceded by a crescendo of harp music.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
A Bardic healer's arrival from the in is preceded by a crescendo of harp music.
H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
You are again able to clot your wounds properly.
H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
You suddenly perceive the vague outline of an aura of rebounding around Alvetta.
H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
You may eat another toadstool.
H:610/610 M:310/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
A Bardic healer's arrival from the west is preceded by a crescendo of harp music.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the east.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south.
H:610/610 M:291/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
A Bardic healer's arrival from the down is preceded by a crescendo of harp music.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the north.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
Hand moving to his sword, a Runeguard Knight walks off to the west.
A Bardic healer's arrival from the west is preceded by a crescendo of harp music.
A Bardic healer's arrival from the north is preceded by a crescendo of harp music.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
A Bardic healer's arrival from the in is preceded by a crescendo of harp music.
Hand moving to his sword, a Runeguard Knight walks off to the west.
A Bardic healer's arrival from the south is preceded by a crescendo of harp music.
Accompanied by the sound of metal, a Runeguard Knight enters from the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the west.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the east.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the south.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the in.
The music dies down as a Bardic healer leaves to the down.
Accompanied by the sound of metal, a Runeguard Knight enters from the in.
Hand moving to his sword, a Runeguard Knight walks off to the in.
Accompanied by the sound of metal, a Runeguard Knight enters from the west.
H:610/610 M:291/310 (eb db) [100|45.99] [Septus RAID] (DAM) [0 0] [blk bee] []
really dislike the raiding system when my guards are crippled by bugs. We sat out yesterday's raid because it was the fourth raid in a row with no change to broken guards which would be the only way we could feasibly put up a defense when there was only Jules, Bellini and me to defend. Zzz.
also mentioning again the timer channel on moving the objectives being reset. It'd be cool to be able to push the objective without that being potentially advantageous to the raiders.
Edit: And I know I'm grouchy but I am. This has been a big problem for me every day this week. >:(
(Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."
(Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."
This happened to me last night (I'd been pushing, along with other members of our team), but when I died and Septus started dragging the other way, he was credited with all of our push time (it often hits before you even get to the river, which is how Oystir saw it, and how I was able to see it for myself).
In the meantime, I might try to counter the bug by setting up some timers and having our team truly focus on fighting back until an appropriate moment when we can basically try to "steal" their push, (but the tracking there is going to be a bit tricky there, at least for me). I'd sure like it better if it was just fixed though. Okay... I was never here.
EDIT: as well, more than one team has got an objective to a giant clot of guards just inside the gate (which also does a really, really good job of making it impossible to win). This whole thing has been (and still is, for sure) a progression towards making it more more "possible" to win, without making it too easy. Right?
Regarding the push/drag timer, that'd need to be per direction tracking rather than a hard reset, or you could just interrupt/push to balancelessly reset progress. I think that needs to happen though for sure.
I appreciate Dec and Jeremy both for getting in touch about it though. I hope we will see some changes soon.
Edit: I mean some people care a lot that you have the statue. Not me. I'm cool.
I think the statue is an objective that any player who doesn't get upset about things just for the sake of getting upset should be able to handle losing, and I thought Antioch taking the statue might finally push us to attempt a raid on Antioch itself (which I do want to try). We have raided quite a bit, but early on, Antioch and Kinsarmar had notoriously strong siege, and a really powerful guard setup. Later on, it's just been hard to get people to bite because the AM juggernaut is back in a big way.
I was also literally right in the middle of making myself some raid stuff (so I can see what's going on better, mainly) when the raid was initiated, and we really are defending daily. This was the first and only raid where we didn't fight like banshees, with whatever we had.
Anyway, like Oystir, I wasn't fussed about probably losing the statue. Because the statue is a pretty good "stick of gum" type objective. It's a good tool to encourage fighting, but it's not absolutely crushing if you lose it.
Most importantly, the push bug in particular really gave me pause in that situation (as I noted in my post above), and Oystir had just told me about it right before the raid began. We had Oystir, me, and tiny Bellini (and yes, poor Curran). I felt like that team in that situation, with that bug could very easily just end up helping push the statue out our own gate, which is rather silly.
With those considerations in mind, I also figured it would A ) be a nice "clean" run that would show just how long it takes to get an objective out even with no player resistance (it does still take quite a large chunk of the allotted raid time) and B ) more bugs might present themselves... In the words of the late, great James Doakes "surprise, redacted".
Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at
once.
Damage Taken: 70 cutting (raw damage: 147) -70 cutting
Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at
once.
Damage Taken: 63 cutting (raw damage: 132) -63 cutting
Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at
once.
Damage Taken: 82 blunt (raw damage: 171) -82 blunt
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
Damage Taken: 55 cutting (raw damage: 116) -55 cutting
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
Damage Taken: 72 blunt (raw damage: 152) -72 blunt
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
Damage Taken: 68 blunt (raw damage: 143) -68 blunt
Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at
once.
Damage Taken: 86 blunt (raw damage: 179) -86 blunt
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
Damage Taken: 66 blunt (raw damage: 138) -66 blunt
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
You have been slain by an elite Runeguard Knight.
Literally one shot, not even time to heal in between.
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
Damage Taken: 49 cutting (raw damage: 139)
Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at
once.
Damage Taken: 52 blunt (raw damage: 146)
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
Damage Taken: 53 blunt (raw damage: 149)
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
Damage Taken: 46 cutting (raw damage: 130)
Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at
once.
Damage Taken: 52 blunt (raw damage: 147)
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
Damage Taken: 52 cutting (raw damage: 147)
An elite Runeguard Knight takes a quick step forward and spins slightly, stabbing both swords
forward to bury in you.
Damage Taken: 50 blunt (raw damage: 141)
Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at
once.
Damage Taken: 61 blunt (raw damage: 171)
Swinging both swords in a smooth arc, an elite Runeguard Knight hacks into both of your sides at
once.
Damage Taken: 61 blunt (raw damage: 172)
H:190/669 M:467/480 K:0 D:1720 B:35
just so it's clear, I had Miasma up, and I am wearing Fullplate as well as surcoat/resist rings/all of my templar defenses.
On top of that Healers make it literally impossible to kill any target they are healing. If you defend a raid at all, it is not possible for the raiders to succeed