Siege Towers

[adderman500]

Excellent idea, I'm sure with a bit of tweaking of numbers this can be refined to something really special actually. I can see you've taken care to make sure that it isn't too OP, eg the raiders have to pay 10 diamond blocks to the defenders.
The thing I love about this idea is it brings back the whole hiding items malarkey, rather than just sticking all your stuff in a huge, ugly obsidian/dirt vault. More care will be taken with valuable items, such that raiders will have a hard time making a profit, which means attacks will have to be well considered and targets carefully selected. And of course, town protection, which was in the old days intended only to stop griefers, will still perform that purpose.
Basically it's great because towns will be OP to a lesser extent. Perhaps it might get rid of dirt door coverings too? They'd be pretty pointless really if the entrance to your town is secure.

 

[Magpieman]

There are numerous problems I have with this system. The first is X-ray. There is no way we can prove if someone is using it to find certain things in a town. This is insanely powerful and since mojang made chests smaller than a block you can no longer hide things from people using it in minecraft. It is so easy for anyone to quickly switch to an X-ray texture in game. Another is of course griefing. The main reason protection exists is to prevent griefing. Heads should most certainly not be able to be taken nor any buildings made from valuables. This is because players want to decorate their town but cannot if someone can come along and take it all off the wall. What will end up happening is everyone will hide heads in chests and at that point the head plugin is pretty pointless. Many people who play on the server have lives and cannot commit to coming on the server every day to see if they are being sieged. So the system would have to take place during a time when the defending town is online. Not to mention the system requires the attacker to be on for like a day, Psy may have nothing better to do but most people have other shit they need to do.

The idea of a siege tower is cool but taking an entire towns protection down is not. Also any system that allows an entire towns wealth to be taken aint ever going to happen because we will just lose so much of our player base.

 

[Zor95]

Many people who play on the server have lives and cannot commit to coming on the server every day to see if they are being sieged. So the system would have to take place during a time when the defending town is online.

This is my biggest problem with it. For most people Minecraft is a very casual game. I want to be able to leave for a week or two comfortable that when I return I can pick up where I left off. Even if there is a requirement that there must be defenders online, that doesn't mean anyone capable of defending the town is online. Some towns accept one or two members just for their PvP skills and for the purpose of defending. If they aren't online then the rest of the town has to overwhelm by sheer numbers which really hasn't worked out well in the past.

I suppose that you could argue given a week or two alone with a town that someone like Psych or myself could figure out a way in to steal anyways. But success with this method of sieging eliminates the challenge of high security. If you win, you just win. Free access to everything.

 

[Cryptite]

My feelings reflect Zor's. It's this difference between Minecraft playstyles that's why any seemingly popular siege systems have some sort of agree-upon time for the fight.

Additionally, if winning a siege gets you free-access to a town, just move your things from your vault out into some geocache in the wilds at bedrock before the siege starts and then voila, you no longer have anything left to be stolen. There are too many abusable mechanics to the current siege setup and that is why we seem so against mechanics that grant outsiders full access to a town, regardless of how long it is.

 

[FatPoulet]

So we are no longer a hardcore pvp free to steal server right? Because everything people do is aim for a 100% secure way of storing stuff and be casual about their time on the server. I have no problem with that, but advertise the server as such... and we'll stick to battlegrounds (which are awesome) but no more talks about overworld plugins or talks about making raiding or stealing possible, it simply isn't with the current player base.

 

[Cryptite]

So we are no longer a hardcore pvp free to steal server right?

We've never advertised Loka as "hardcore pvp free to steal". We advertise it as a unique custom server with Towns, PvP, Market, and RP and no chest protection; something for everyone. We've never specifically called out or emphasized raiding.

If you're referring to this survive or die thing, that was a tagline for the server a long time ago; it's clearly not quite as applicable anymore.

This siege system still has the potential to be cool, but if you boil down the arguments many people are making, it's clear the between-the-lines here is "We want to be able to steal from anyone, anywhere, and there should be no place (besides an ender chest) that you can store things we can't get to." If that's why you want a siege system, you may be disappointed.

Now if you think a war system where there are still rewards, bragging rights, pvp skill, and the ability to add conflict and politics to the server, then that's what we should be discussing.

 

[FatPoulet]

Now if you think a war system where there are still rewards, bragging rights, pvp skill, and the ability to add conflict and politics to the server, then that's what we should be discussing.

Yes pls

 

[Zor95]

Back in the olden days survival was not easy with our limited technologies and not-really-worth-it diamond equipment. It was not uncommon to take significant losses when facing mobs or exploring dark places. That was the price of advancement.

These days, the more you advance the more secure you become. We have incredibly powerful enchantments and food items for mobs. We have potions for lava. Run out of supplies while on your adventure? Plop down an ender chest and grab whatever you decided to put in there. Or get on a horse which goes 3x faster than you and eliminates the need for food. There is little to no loss.

Why is that a problem? Well what do you do when you've conquered the world? You leave to find another place to conquer.

Enter raiding.

The one aspect of minecraft multiplayer that is completely unpredictable. Though you can reduce your chances of facing it, you can't eliminate it. Your items will always be at risk. Your life will always be at risk. Some love this fact, most hate it. It doesn't matter. Either way it's exciting and it's the only thing that can stop, stall, or even reverse the progression of a town.

So do not say

it simply isn't with the current player base.

It doesn't matter if they want it or not. We're still a vanilla based server and it's an essential part of vanilla gameplay.

Now... that's not to say it's easy. Balancing this is incredibly difficult which is why we're currently debating.

But anyways that's my tangent. I just wish people would stop trying to get rid of theft and raiding.

 

[Psychedelic98]

This siege system still has the potential to be cool, but if you boil down the arguments many people are making, it's clear the between-the-lines here is "We want to be able to steal from anyone, anywhere, and there should be no place (besides an ender chest) that you can store things we can't get to." If that's why you want a siege system, you may be disappointed.

It isn't that it should be impossible to have your items 100% secure, but it should be much more difficult than an obsidian cube(which after cannons really only needs to be dirt). A good example of this is Winterfell. Their town was never 100% secure, but I was unable to make it into their main vault, despite all of my efforts. If you want Loka to be interesting again, revive the creative security aspect of towns.

On X-Raying: There are ways to catch xrayers, and there are also ways to hide your items from them. Deciding that 99% of the server can't do something because 1% of people might do something wrong is just plain stupid. X-rayers can mine, should we nerf that next?

 

[Magpieman]

I honestly believe at least 50% of players on Loka have turned on an X-ray texture at least once, even if its only for a minute. Its easy to catch people x-raying when they mine, but much more difficult to see if they are doing it to get to players items and into hidden rooms. The x rayer could argue they had inside info which is why they dug straight to the room or chest.

 

[Zor95]

I would agree with Magpie and say that with something as high stakes at this, Xray needs to be high priority.

 

[Cryptite]

It doesn't matter if they want it or not.

It matters to the health of the server. From a server owner perspective, I've seen more players driven off the server because they've been raided once or twice. Whether a small portion of Loka wants raiding or not, the majority of players on Loka would rather we didn't have raiding or thievery.

The big thing here is that people yearn for conflict, wars, etc. They miss the politics, the stories of battle (however big or small), but what they don't miss is logging in to find all of their valuables gone. Unless we somehow manage to attract an influx of mature raiding-minded people, the current population we have and that we gain take a loss like that as a reason to quit the server.

We're still a vanilla based server and it's an essential part of vanilla gameplay.

We need to be honest here, the minute towns were added (by Asy, not me, for those who wonder), we stopped really being a vanilla server. We can retain elements of vanilla, but when you take away THE element of vanilla that enables risk (adding block protection), you've removed the "days of yore" people seem to want back.

creative security aspect of towns

Stop calling it that. There's been very little about creative security in towns. Creative security is not effective security. You've all said it before, want a secure town? Build an obsidian box and put your things in it. Want a 'secure' town above ground when there were cannons? Build an obsidian wall with water on it. Those things are not creative, they're a huge pain in the ass and provided a huge, sometimes impassable hurdle for people interested in trying to start a town.

 

[Zor95]

It doesn't matter if they want it or not.

It matters to the health of the server. From a server owner perspective, I've seen more players driven off the server because they've been raided once or twice. Whether a small portion of Loka wants raiding or not, the majority of players on Loka would rather we didn't have raiding or thievery.

Yeah, when raiding had few to no limits a lot did quit. Things are different now and we're carefully considering strategies to reimplement these activities.

Naturally most people don't want to be punished, but everyone is, at some point, punished. That's how these systems work. You are rewarded for doing 'x' and punished for doing 'y'. A system which only has rewards is never going to be as satisfying as one with punishments thrown in.

The big thing here is that people yearn for conflict, wars, etc. They miss the politics, the stories of battle (however big or small), but what they don't miss is logging in to find all of their valuables gone. Unless we somehow manage to attract an influx of mature raiding-minded people, the current population we have and that we gain take a loss like that as a reason to quit the server.

Again, that's why we're working to find a strategy that works. People have to be patient with this.

We're still a vanilla based server and it's an essential part of vanilla gameplay.

We need to be honest here, the minute towns were added (by Asy, not me, for those who wonder), we stopped really being a vanilla server. We can retain elements of vanilla, but when you take away THE element of vanilla that enables risk (adding block protection), you've removed the "days of yore" people seem to want back.

Entirely vanilla servers don't work these days. There's simply too many of them to attract enough people to sustain a community. However, we aren't creative based. This isn't FTB, Pixelmon, or any other mod. We're still vanilla based.

Yes I, and others from Artifact, are still fond of the beta days, but I don't want them back. I just want you all to learn from them. People were bored on Artifact after months of basically creative gameplay. Build this, build that, what next? I was thanked for adding in some excitement with my slaughtering and raiding of various towns. Like I said, it's no longer appropriate to have such extremes, but there is still a place, and an a need, for raiding.

 

[Psychedelic98]

Whether a small portion of Loka wants raiding or not, the majority of players on Loka would rather we didn't have raiding or thievery.

I disagree, even this forum post suggests otherwise. While the majority of Loka don't raid regularly, I don't know of anyone who would not want to raid either Kobeyador or myself given the opportunity. It has been mentioned

Stop calling it that. There's been very little about creative security in towns. Creative security is not effective security. You've all said it before, want a secure town? Build an obsidian box and put your things in it. Want a 'secure' town above ground when there were cannons? Build an obsidian wall with water on it. Those things are not creative, they're a huge pain in the ass and provided a huge, sometimes impassable hurdle for people interested in trying to start a town.

I gave an example of creative security: Winterfell, with a trap gate, large ditches, and weird corners on the walls to make them impossible to walk around are just a few examples of creative security there. Before you say that Winterfell was the only one, The Reach (Dingo's Reach, 2 maps ago) had a redstone bridge that could slow you down or speed you up, a massive dispenser system, and a large pit to knock raiders into. I didn't get to see much of HC when the interesting stuff started appearing, but the parts that I saw were filled with some very interesting traps, in addition to secret doors and pistons to hide chests. The newer Reach that we saw on this map had a central redstone control room that could close every door from one area, allowing them to quickly trap anyone who decided to enter. This is just what I've seen and what I can recall, I'm sure others can add to the list. Enough of these could provide a significant hassle to the raiders, potentially to the point that it's too expensive or time consuming to be worthwhile. There isn't a necessity for creative security, that's why it hasn't been used. Everything that could be used to get through obsidian has been nerfed(breaking blocks, nether entry, withers), which is why people build ugly expensive walls instead of trying to think of unique, interesting, and fun ways to secure a town.

 

[Jedoi]

Whether a small portion of Loka wants raiding or not, the majority of players on Loka would rather we didn't have raiding or thievery.

I disagree, even this forum post suggests otherwise. While the majority of Loka don't raid regularly, I don't know of anyone who would not want to raid either Kobeyador or myself given the opportunity. It has been mentioned.

I don't want to raid you or Kobe given the opportunity.

 

[Ivette_Aramis]

Whether a small portion of Loka wants raiding or not, the majority of players on Loka would rather we didn't have raiding or thievery.

I disagree, even this forum post suggests otherwise. While the majority of Loka don't raid regularly, I don't know of anyone who would not want to raid either Kobeyador or myself given the opportunity. It has been mentioned.

I don't want to raid you or Kobe given the opportunity.

The majority do.