Castle siege declarations

Siege preparation.

Guilds are able to sign up to either siege or defend a castle over a week long declaration period.

• Once a guild registers for the siege a scroll creation quest is initiated that guild members may participate in, and it becomes possible to lay the declaration scroll down as soon as the quest is completed.
  • Multiple guilds may register to attack and the first to complete the scroll and lay down the declaration may begin to have their members register to attack (there will be a cap).
  • The siege scroll deployment is a 5 min rooted cast that alerts the region at the cast initiation and names the caster that must be the guild leader.
  • If the guild leader is killed, the casting is interrupted. The scroll will remain until it is recast. It will disappear if it is not cast within the declaration period.
  • The scroll may only be placed in a ring around the castle. The quality of the scroll determines the proximity to the castle.
• Players don't need to be in the guild that owns a castle in order to sign up for the defense of the castle.
• The guild leader that owns the castle is able to approve guilds that have applied to defend at the castle.
• Following declaration, the defender has a week grace period to approve defenders, hire mercenary NPCs and set up defensible positions.

Siege defenses

Castle siege defenses may be deployed by Kings and Queens to defend their castle against sieges.

• Each of the five castles has its own static layout. Defenders may deploy traps and blockades within their castle, as well as hire mercenary NPCs to defend specific locations.

• In the first three weeks that a guild occupies a castle they will need to level up each of their castle nodes to Village (stage 3) through questing.

Server prime-time

Objective-based PvP events such as node sieges, castle sieges, guild wars, and node wars will occur within a prime-time window somewhere between 3PM and 9PM server time. This is subject to testing.

• Guild wars and node wars can be declared at any time, but the objectives will only spawn during the prime-time window.

Announcements/Notifications

Goblins attacking a Town (stage 4) node due to a triggered event.

Enemies can only really grow stronger as the node grows, becoming outposts essentially for exiled or rivals of the existing order. – Steven Sharif

There will be local, regional, or global (server-wide) announcements/notifications of important events.

• Castle sieges.
• Node sieges.
• Legendary world boss spawns.
• Mob attacks and Monster coin events.
• Dungeon opportunities.

Event notifications will utilize different methods depending on the stage (scope and level) of the event.

• Local events
  • Local events (such as caravan PvP) may prompt players via the UI asking if they wish to participate or not.
  • Other local events may offer audible or visual cues without any UI notifications.
  • Local events that have not been addressed may start to expand regionally or even globally.

One important thing to note about events in general is notifications are sent to the players. Players can opt into these events in a similar way that you would into a quest. You're going to be presented with a 'would you like to participate' but they might not always be that way. You might hear trees falling in the forest and that may be an audio cue to tell you something's happening over there. It's out of the ordinary. This is not normally an audio cue that I hear in this area and i'm gonna go investigate that thing. So it might not just be always that UI window represented with a 'participate or not' but I'm going to go investigate and in that sense it could be stage driven. So you might have the more local stage where it is just the visual or audio cues and you get to go participate in that stage; and then when it advances, or if you don't answer the problem in time, then it starts to expand regionally and then it might send out particular notifications to either citizens of the node from which it falls under its purview or even broader than that. It could be global driven events and then it could have things that are are visual cues that are really big like a giant blizzard that's affecting the zone, because the event hasn't been addressed; and that can affect the crop rotations or it can affect passages and roads and how caravans move. There's a lot that the predicate system informs to the event system and then the event system reacts to those types of predicates. – Steven Sharif

• Node-based events
  • Certain node-based events will be broadcast to node citizens, others, such as caravans, will not be announced and will instead rely on player word-of-mouth.
  • Node advancement notifications will be broadcast depending on the node's stage.
    • Expedition (stage 1) and Encampment (stage 2) nodes will announce within proximity of the node.
    • Village (stage 3) nodes will have region-wide announcements.
    • Town (stage 4) and higher will likely broadcast world-wide.
  • New citizens of a node may be announced in a dedicated node citizen chat channel.
  • Election notices will be mailed to the accounts of citizens.

Whether it be like a siege or a triggered event against a city or like a unique dungeon opportunity... those types of things are going to involve notifications. Especially to the citizens of the city; where you'll be informed of an impending event. Basically it will give you time. – Steven Sharif

• Regional or global events
  • Wider events may be broadcast regionally or even globally.

Siege alliances

When a siege begins, temporary alliances are formed among attackers and defenders.

• For node sieges, citizens of the node or provincial nodes being attacked are automatically registered as defenders.
• There are many reasons to participate as an ally in the attack or defence of other nodes.
  • Titles.
  • Items.
  • Materials.
  • Money.
  • Social bonds.

Many incentives exist that can benefit your node and yourself personally by participating in the attack or defense of cities. These range from titles, to items, to materials, to money. Additionally, aiding others may help you strengthen bonds when your assets are threatened. – Steven Sharif

Siege participation

Non-registered combatants are not permitted on the siege field in castle or node sieges.

• Alpha-1 castle sieges are located in a separate zone that is accessible via a NPC teleporter.
  • Castle sieges (in the final game) may or may not be instanced.

• Players may choose to respawn at their HQ as long as they are registered.
  • Non-registered guilds are not granted the ability to take ownership of the castle if victorious.

• Players could potentially intercept stragglers with the guild war or flagging system en route to the siege field.

Lower level characters will have usefulness in mass combat that does not depend on their level, such as manning siege weapons, helping repair fortifications, bringing proximity-based buffs to key positions, using stealth or scaling walls. These types of things are relevant to the tide of battle and do not require the player to be max-level or have high combat stats.

Castle siege objectives

As a Siege rages on, there is a sense of territory and progression through the battle. These are represented through Control Points, and each side starts with a few already owned. Others are present, but neutral. As Control Points are captured by one side, that side gains a temporary buff and an increase to their spawn rate. The other side will find that their spawn rate has decreased and their ultimate victory condition has been pushed just a little bit further from their reach. The spawn areas also have a portal which will allow the side that owns it to teleport to any Control Point that side owns - perfect for backdoor shenanigans.

• Castles will initially be occupied by an NPC adversary. Guilds have a period of time to level up in order to siege these castles.
  • The attacking guilds need to fight the NPCs and kill a raid boss at the center of the castle. Whichever guild had highest contributing DPS against the raid boss will capture the castle.
  • Castle nodes around NPC run castles will not be present.

The key to not making it a "zerg fest" is by emphasizing the the strategic relevance of those objectives and then catering objectives to group play versus raid play. So you have a spreading of different types of objectives where only a group can compete for it, versus a raid at the choke point. Having that distribution, it makes it so that smaller guilds have a vital role to play and can perform in environments where numbers are not always the deciding factor. – Steven Sharif

• Castles that are occupied by guilds have the following objectives.
  • Attackers capture waypoints/control points in the castle's architecture to diminish their respawn timer and increase the respawn timer of the defenders.
  • Defenders can counter-play by attacking the siege headquarters of the attackers to diminish their declaration flags and increase their respawn timers.
  • Legendary NPCs will be present as commanders that act like mini raid bosses within the defending and attacking armies. Killing these provides added benefits, such as certain types of drops that grant battlefield benefits to either side.
  • The ultimate objective for the defenders is to survive during the timed period of the siege, which is approximately 90 minutes in its first iteration.
  • If the attackers reach the inner keep of the castle, a guild leader (or one other delegated officer) must cast a 3 to 5 minute cast at a specific channel point in order to seal ownership of the castle. It may be possible for defenders to decide on the location where the channel point is located.
    • Channelling time is diminished based on the number of waypoints captured during the siege.
    • There's an opportunity for any guild leader in the attacking alliance to capture the castle for themselves, despite what may have been agreed upon prior to the siege.

There's an opportunity there for perhaps backstabbing in the throne room where one guild is like yeah we agreed to get to this area but we had a change of heart in the middle of the battle. – Steven Sharif

Siege mechanics

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

A siege occurs over several phases.

• Certain siege mechanics may be gated for specific size groups during sieges.
• There will not be a deserter debuff for leaving a siege before it is complete.
• More will be revealed in an upcoming blog entry.

Completing a castle siege

Castle siege gate (portcullis).

A castle siege will last for two hours.

• During this time specific objectives within the castle will be contested.

During the two-hour long siege that's when everything changes. The portcullises go down, the gates go down. You'll need siege weaponry. There's going to be specific objectives within the castles that you'll have to conquer and then there'll be- if it's an un-owned castle- it'll need to have a raid boss at the center that gets fought for. Attackers can fight each other during that experience. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Castle sieges
• Sieges
• Combat