I have for a long time been irritated by a number of commonly accepted norms in sieging which actively create zergs and deter from tactical and strategic play.

1. The Destructibility of Objects

Here's a challenge - take a REAL great axe, give it to the powerlifting world champion and then get him to attack a barbican castle gate with it. You know what happens?

The axe blunts and or breaks and he acheives precisely nothing.

The idea that weapons (arrows, axes, swords etc.) or flash in the pan spells - withering necromantic attacks, splashes of flame or lighting strokes can seriously do any real damage to a proper fortress gate, never mind the walls - is crap.

The fact is - only tremendous and repeated impact or the kind of explosions which produce a shattering shockwave even touch fortifications.

Sieges would be so much better if you HAD to build siege weapons, or struggle up ladders or siege towers to beat enemy fortifications. Not just zerg the entrance for 5 minutes watching a health bar creep down from fifty people on auto-attack.

2. I Am Legion - the Zerg At Work

The reason the Roman Empire kicked the hell out of many times their numbers of barbarians in most battles was because the barbarians used zerg tactics.

Zerg tactics in the real world get you dead against organised opposition.

In the original dev chats about Age of Conan they talked about a system where formations of NPC troops could be assembled and 'soft capture' boxes placed within them where PC's could stand - where unless they made an active movement, they would then automatically follow the troop formations moves - which a PC commander controlled of course.

They dropped the idea and gave in to the ease of zerg mechanics.

Such a shame considering thay MMO has great combat and full impact...

This should be looked at again by someone - adventurous dungeon skirmishing etc is fine for what it is - but the battlefield should be the province of armies aka Total War - not the hordes of 'chaos'.

I zccept however that having larger armies and plots of PC's on screen is a technology problem at the moment - but the time will come...

3. Artillery

Artillery is usually far too weak. Anyone getting hit by a balista bolt should die. Anyone getting crushed by a catapult or trebuchet shot should die. heavy damage, aoe knockdown and stun should hit those around exploding shot.

Artillery should be difficult to aim with a ranked skill for artillerists to increase accuracy based on training and practice.

Fire rate should be reasonably slow, but no targetting reticle or other warning should be given to targets.

You ran in front of the loaded and primed scorpion or didn't look up when it started raining capault shot - tough!

4. Battlements

Battlements should give proper cover, increase the range of attacks fired from them and not block LOS of defenders.

Pretty basic stuff - but the number of games where hardly anyone goes on the walls and just wait for a breach to occur to face the zerg is shocking.

5. Open Gates

How many times have you had to defend a fortification whose NPC don't shut the gate, and there is no facility to shut it yourself?

Ridiculous isn't it...

If there is a 'defend x' quest at the location then the location should defend itself - not stand there with the gates open like clothes dummies with a deathwish.

6. Summon the Sappers!

Tunneling and counter tunneling. Sapper teams should be a resources - like siege weapons available to both sides. have a 10 min timer-limited sapper team build a tunnel under wall - then have it available as an access point which one person can go through at once into the fortification, or you can set a fire in it to damage or bring down the wall above.

With a slight visual indication of the proceeding tunnel on the far side of the wall - counter tunnels can be dug by defenders sapper teams to allow a tunnel fight for ownership - the defenders (if they take it) able to collapse it and end the threat.

Put these elements in then you have to fight smart, and zerging will be less than productive.

An excelent post, really well said.

When I first started gaming online and 'Raid' was mentioned I pictured Viking raids or cattle raids....not what there is today. I wish they would call them something else because in today's games a raid is not a raid.

As for your points, I think the reason games are where they are is simply due to the pressures of time and resources and perhaps a big dollop of lazy. I agree, a game will eventually do it as you suggest but it will and has been a long time waiting for a game that actually knows what a raid is and doesn't put in a 10, 20, 40 man dungeon crawl and call it a raid.

The problem is some of the big Zergs they are actually organised LOL..

Anyway you should check out the new Darkfall for some proper sieges when its released next week.. you cant go smashing down walls and gates with your weapons or spells..

You need siege equipment..

Or you could also check Mortal Online out as the siege mechanics there are pretty good.. as you need to actually build the siege weapons at the lcoation your attacking so you need to setup supply trains to get all the materials needed to build it, then a supply train for the  rocks the weapons uses.. so not only do you need to defend the weapon you allow need to defend the supply train.. its a shame the devs behind MO where not better as they really did have some great ideas.

Posted by Caliburn101

1. The Destructibility of Objects

2. I Am Legion - the Zerg At Work

3. Artillery

4. Battlements

5. Open Gates

Agree with all those. Not sure sappers is a top priority but a "nice to have". To add some commentary however:

1., Again these should be major enterprises to actually build and therefore to destroy them they should be a seriously hard proposition and the defenders due to the defences should have the advantage which needs ot be matched by 00's of enemies and siege engines... not a 12-party dirty dozen or 2! Pathfinder has a good blog on settlements... Player-Created Buildings and Structures

2. Agree, organised armies should have bonuses and wipe zergs - most mass combat in mmorpgs reminds me of barbarians with huge Claymores, not Roman military strategy.

There's an excellent Design Blog by Goblin Works for Pathfinder Online that touches on this: Blog #18: You're in the Army Now!

3. Siege Weapons should be expensive and time intensive to build - so there ideally would be crafting and economic costs/planning so they can't just be 'poofed' out of thin air by the guild with most gold.

4. Increased range from Battlements - great idea! And agree one-shot hit of artillery should be deadly imo. :)

5. Again there's been some really good ideas for Pathfinder Online forums from the devs about the complications of guilds taking ""forts"" while the home-boys are offline. Some automated settings are therefore indispensable of a kind.

It's called Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning!

1. The stupidity of doorhammer has been removed with 1.4.0. You destroy the keep door with the ram and with the help of single target siege weapons. The time of the zerg attacking keepdoors with knifes, axes, swords is over. Thanks God.

2. With the 1.4.0 Campaign revamp has broken the Zerg in T4 (end-game). 3 pairings you have to fight for, 3 keeps you have to rank up. Your realm can only Zerg. You'll lose and never push to City while still outnumbering 2 or 3 vs 1. And even during keep siege the attacking side, who's normally the dominating one with numbers at that hour of the day has to spread out to hold the BO's. If you let the defenders get their Ressource carriers in, healing the keep door, you will never take that keep, flip the zone and push further too City.

3. It needs to be balanced as it has to remain fun. Getting one-shot during keep siege isn't funny at all. One shotting the griefers at your warcamp although with aoe siege isn't bad at all. Job done here too, even if a tweak of the range wouldn't hurt.

4. During keep defense the walls are fully populated, the posterns guarded, push out frontdoor to put pressure on the ram and push outside side postern to put pressure on the flanks.

5. Colission detection between players to build a tank wall. A foreman to buy a new keep door after wipe. There are no NPC's in the RvR lakes. No Lords, no guards, nothing. It's your realm keep, you come to defend. Thank you Mythic.

6. Rat Ogres, player played, to pull peeps from your warband on the walls. Manticores and Griffons to fly from your keep to the other realm's keep to bomb or jump on the walls. By-pass postern for melee dps. We don't need tunnels as already enough means to get inside.

It's there and it can ben properly executed. But badies will always remain badies, lucky us GW2 is there for them.

The Nid

I agree with the above poster that those are some really weak arguments, however I enjoyed the stance that it is crap that magic spells can do any real damage to a proper fortress gate. I agree. If magic spells had any affect on real defense walls in real life, banks would be robbed by wizards, not thugs.

That said, I think you might have enjoyed Shadowbane.

Originally posted by zymurgeist
Wooden gates are not impervious to axes. The problem was standing there chopping away at a gate in clear view of the enemy was often fatal. If you wanted to be realistic about sieges until the advent of guns your options were treachery, intimidation or waiting out starvation and disease. None of which is particularly fun in a game. Cities were almost never taken by siege warfare. "Realism" arguments are weak at best. It's better start from the goal of making it fun. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of ways to make losing a city in which a great amount of time has been invested fun. If the outcome is essentially meaningless that's not much fun either.

Wrong I'm afraid.

The iron or bronze reinforcement of a sturdy gate would defeat an axe wielder entirely. There is not ONE case in history, ever, where a gate was opened with hand held weapons. Not one.

If that had been the case at some point in history - people would have stopped building gates out of wood...

Originally posted by Loktofeit

I agree with the above poster that those are some really weak arguments, however I enjoyed the stance that it is crap that magic spells can do any real damage to a proper fortress gate. I agree. If magic spells had any affect on real defense walls in real life, banks would be robbed by wizards, not thugs.

 

That said, I think you might have enjoyed Shadowbane.

Any spell powerful enough to sunder a gate would hit so hard against flesh and bone they would be one-shot-kill spells leaving nothing but a greasy smudge. Spells are never programmed as being that powerful in any game - so cannot ergo, smash gates, never mind sections of wall!

Basic physics...

In the case of fire - a gate (if it had a significant wooden component) would have to be 'fired' for a significant period of time before it was weak enough to be breached.

Again - basic physics.

There are as far as I know - no fire spells in any game which apply a DoT for an hour or more...

Originally posted by azzamasin
You cant even expect the mouth breathers to get out of a red circle indicating fire is incoming and you think you could get hundreds of MMO players to line up in a perfect Phalanx?  You sir have high aspirations for your fellow gamer.

I have no such expectation - I liked the idea of a character or characters being able to 'slot' themselves into a formation of NPC troops and automove with them unless they hit a button to leave - whilst still able to fight in-situ.

Rather a different proposition I think you will agree.

Originally posted by azzamasin
You cant even expect the mouth breathers to get out of a red circle indicating fire is incoming and you think you could get hundreds of MMO players to line up in a perfect Phalanx?  You sir have high aspirations for your fellow gamer.

Originally posted by Caliburn101

Originally posted by azzamasin
You cant even expect the mouth breathers to get out of a red circle indicating fire is incoming and you think you could get hundreds of MMO players to line up in a perfect Phalanx?  You sir have high aspirations for your fellow gamer.

I have no such expectation - I liked the idea of a character or characters being able to 'slot' themselves into a formation of NPC troops and automove with them unless they hit a button to leave - whilst still able to fight in-situ.

Rather a different proposition I think you will agree.

So this is about PVE and not pvp? Because large amounts of NPCS in PVP battles tends to be really rather bad.

I'm just going to grab this little detail...

The barbarians didn't use "zerg tactics" against the Romans. Some had a pretty sophisticated military structure a good understanding of tactics, good generals and high culture. For example the Dacians (was it Dacians? -somewhere around the Northern Balkans) were unrivalled jewelers, only the Roman propaganda smeared them as uncivilized.

There are plenty of instances where the Romans were outsmarted by their neighbours.

Originally posted by Caliburn101

Originally posted by Loktofeit

I agree with the above poster that those are some really weak arguments, however I enjoyed the stance that it is crap that magic spells can do any real damage to a proper fortress gate. I agree. If magic spells had any affect on real defense walls in real life, banks would be robbed by wizards, not thugs.

 

That said, I think you might have enjoyed Shadowbane.

Any spell powerful enough to sunder a gate would hit so hard against flesh and bone they would be one-shot-kill spells leaving nothing but a greasy smudge. Spells are never programmed as being that powerful in any game - so cannot ergo, smash gates, never mind sections of wall!

Basic physics...

In the case of fire - a gate (if it had a significant wooden component) would have to be 'fired' for a significant period of time before it was weak enough to be breached.

Again - basic physics.

There are as far as I know - no fire spells in any game which apply a DoT for an hour or more...

Dude, you delivered in spades.

I knew the reply would be out there, but you exceeded my expectations, Caliburn.

I need to read up on the basic physics of magic spells, because they don't seem to match what I'm currently familiar with. As it stand, even the most basic fireball or lightning strike seems to me to be something that would either require the combined forces of Criss Angel and HAARP to reproduce or would be some klind of mystical occurence that falls outside of the laws of nature as I've been taught to date.

I mean, if a fire spell burns the enemy, why doesn't it burn the caster's hands? Or if I cast a firefield, how does it know which of the people that walk into it are bad guys and which aren't? And where did the energy come from that formed that fireball? Was it from me or from nature? What energy source is being depleted and how is it renewed? Is a fireball really made of fire, though? When I cast it at trees and shrubbery they don't burn. And if it isn't real fire, then why do we hold it to the natural behavior of fire in other scenarios lie, say, a castle gate?

I guess I just always made assumptions that all this stuff was fantasy make-believe stuff and accepted it as fun game mechanics. Do you have a link to any books or reference material on the basic physics of magic spells? I'd really like to read up on that to see how real life spells differ in properties and behavior from the made up ones in games.

Originally posted by Quirhid

I'm just going to grab this little detail...

The barbarians didn't use "zerg tactics" against the Romans. Some had a pretty sophisticated military structure a good understanding of tactics, good generals and high culture. For example the Dacians (was it Dacians? -somewhere around the Northern Balkans) were unrivalled jewelers, only the Roman propaganda smeared them as uncivilized.

There are plenty of instances where the Romans were outsmarted by their neighbours.

The Vandals, Goths (both Visi and Ostro) and Huns all had quite sophisticated structures and produced some amazing art (especially in gold). Some of them were also actually Christian and not pagan.

Most were smeared by either the Romans and/or more frequently, the Roman Catholic Church. 

Originally posted by Quirhid

I'm just going to grab this little detail...

The barbarians didn't use "zerg tactics" against the Romans. Some had a pretty sophisticated military structure a good understanding of tactics, good generals and high culture. For example the Dacians (was it Dacians? -somewhere around the Northern Balkans) were unrivalled jewelers, only the Roman propaganda smeared them as uncivilized.

There are plenty of instances where the Romans were outsmarted by their neighbours.

Did I say ALL barbarians?

As an ex-archaeologist I could trot out a fair number of barbarian battles - such as any number of Germanic or Celtic battles which qualify.

I am of course talking about what a modern MMO player would look at and think 'barbarian' - there are not that many who would start wondering whether they spoke Greek or undertsood certain forms of 'civilised' literature before classifying them as barbarians or not.

To Romans - Cathaginians were 'barbarians', Persians were 'barbarians' and for the purposes of this thread - your point is pointless.

Most armies got rolled by Romans because of their fighting method, tactics and strategies. At the siege of Alesia Caesar beat a massive horde of Celts that vastly outnumbered his army. At the Battle of Watling Street Boudica's 'zerg' got ground into mincemeat by far lesser numbers of Romans because the Romans chose their ground well and used a saw-tooth formation when the attackers didn't use any formation at all.

They were barbarians, they zerged and they lost.

End of story.