Making towns more interactive:
Town defences
Add active defences to kingdoms’ towns.
They already appeared in places like the remains of Cassia town (only appearance, not active), Navy fortresses and clan builds, but it’s a bit odd how capitals or important trade towns of kingdoms with armies aren’t prepared against pirate raids or attacks coming from the sea.
Walls would work like Fort Castrum’s ones, with fixed durability and being a target for ship cannons and weapons.
Once destroyed, all attacks from the town defences stop.
The boats that participated to the attacks stop and are also locked in place.
The active NPCs also rush inside the houses.
Now NPCs groups spawn at the ports of the towns, one for each boat that damaged the defences, be it players or NPCs.
For players they are composed of the deckhands and a couple of crew NPCs.
For NPCs, only pirates can damage defences, a group of pirate spawn, with captain and vice at the head.
On a set path, one after another, each group rushes at a target.
The targets are shops, as most lucrative, then normal houses.
The targets are predetermined and have an order of priority, based on the money they give once pillaged.
If a target is already being robbed, the next group goes to the one after in the order of priority
The order of attack of the groups is determined by the % of damage done to the town’s defences.
There are groups of soldier/defending NPCs waiting them at set positions, with others being released at waves. Each group has a leader.
Battles between groups are based on total durability and power, decided by the group total level.
While fighting, each group chip away at the durability of the other group.
Once the durability of a group reaches 0, the group is eliminated.
The fight animation is a simple scene of melee distance attacks, quick and orderly, to keep lag to the minimum.
Meanwhile, what can the players do?
The players can attack the groups.
If the group is an NPCs one, once attacked, the leader of each group will aggro on the player, decreasing the group power.
If the group is a player’s one, the attacking player will be able to attack until they reduce the group durability at 0, eliminating it.
Once every group is eliminated or all targets are destroyed, the attack ends.
Make raiding a town relevant
Right now destroying entire cities has little to no importance, being valued even less than killing a generic criminal.
This seems a little weird if pushing for immersion.
Once a certain number of damage is inflicted by a player on the town’s buildings, the town is sealed (the city gates closed, town surrounded by invisible walls, same as clan walls).
To leave the player has to either wait a certain period of time, indicated with a countdown, or destroy the city gates, with a certain durability.
To add challenge:
- while the town is sealed, groups of guards (few in numbers, 4 or 5 for example) would patrol the city on decided paths (think of pacman for reference)
- there will be groups of different levels, with different leaders based on the levels
- if they detect you, their reaction will vary based on your level:
- if your level is too low, you will be arrested immediately
- if its in a normal/certain range, you will be able to escape, but the other groups will be alerted, rushing to your position on predetermined routes. All NPCs groups have a detection range. If you are inside the range of too many groups, you will be automatically arrested (overwhelmed by numbers).
If you escape from the range of a group, they will lose you and go back to their normal patrol. - If your level is high enough instead, the group will be intimidated and only the leader NPC will fight you. If you defeat him, the group is eliminated.
(The choice of using inactive NPCs’ groups is the way I thought to reduce lag to minimum).
ynri0 the second overhere