Bracing gates with wood / repairing gates.

[NEMO_CZ]

I think bracing the gate with wood and or the ability to repair the gate should return.

I genuinely forgot that bracing gates with wood was a thing until I remembered how much wood we piled up behind the Minas Morgul gate on V1. Glorious times those were. (We also often lost the flag because we didn't actually know where it was and let attackers would sneak cap it, but that's not the point here. xD)

The reason why I'm making this a suggestion is that I feel like when these mechanics got removed, it became detrimental, in most cases, for the attacking team to assault the walls. Assaulting walls is just not worth it anymore on any map other than Helm's Deep where there is no gate in the Deeping wall.

I think that on siege maps the need to assault walls should return. This would allow for more numerous attacker teams compared to the defenders, as the defenders could leverage the fortifications to make up the difference, and would make sieges feel more like sieges again.

To make these changes work well, breaking a gate should no longer be treated as the main in between flag objective - the spawns should not move when a gate is broken. This would make bypassing the gate (for example with a good constructor) just as valid as breaking it. And I think having more valid options would be more fun.


Another mechanic that could supplement this change would be an ability for the attackers to keep the gate open for longer when they manage to sneak in and open it. Maybe the attacking constructor would be able to break the closing mechanism by destroying the lever or something. The defender team would then have the ability to repair it, but it would be yet another option, and it would avoid the awkward dance where the strategy for the defenders is actually to keep the gate open most of the time, and the attacking team is desperately trying to close it to be able to destroy it and move on.

 

[Stavrdaf]

In most cases there isn't an easy way to assault the wall instead of the gate for attackers apart from the case of Helm's Deep and that one Tirith flag. Even with ladders most walls and openings are ladder-proofed with stairs.

The regular non constructor attacker correctly doesnt, with the current system, bother with going past a gate as it is much easier and quicker to just bash it and break it for all future skirmishes.

Opening and closing the gate only slighty slows down the attackers buying just 1 or 2 minutes against an en masse attack on the gate

The bracing of the gate with blocks was replaced with the bracing of the gate by any teammate making the bracing more realistic and team focused. Thus the whole defender team needs to work together to hold the gate instead of a lone constructor having all the power to effectively halt the game like it was back in v2.

I thought repairing the gate was a thing already (as going close to a gate sometimes displayes how much wood you need to repair, helm's main gate etc) but maybe it is broken.

Overall,
If we want a more dynamic siege experience we would either need to rebalance ladders and remove certain ladder-proofing and or add things like Tim's recently added breakable ladders on Helm's Deeping Wall on other maps and sections. If things like this for the attackers are added bracing should be slighty buffed in order to balance out in favour for defenders.
I am all for a more dynamic siege experience but as it stands gates are as powerful as they should be if not a bit underpowered

 

[NEMO_CZ]

In most cases there isn't an easy way to assault the wall instead of the gate for attackers apart from the case of Helm's Deep and that one Tirith flag. Even with ladders most walls and openings are ladder-proofed with stairs.

The regular non constructor attacker correctly doesnt, with the current system, bother with going past a gate as it is much easier and quicker to just bash it and break it for all future skirmishes.

Opening and closing the gate only slighty slows down the attackers buying just 1 or 2 minutes against an en masse attack on the gate

The bracing of the gate with blocks was replaced with the bracing of the gate by any teammate making the bracing more realistic and team focused. Thus the whole defender team needs to work together to hold the gate instead of a lone constructor having all the power to effectively halt the game like it was back in v2.

I thought repairing the gate was a thing already (as going close to a gate sometimes displayes how much wood you need to repair, helm's main gate etc) but maybe it is broken.

Overall,
If we want a more dynamic siege experience we would either need to rebalance ladders and remove certain ladder-proofing and or add things like Tim's recently added breakable ladders on Helm's Deeping Wall on other maps and sections. If things like this for the attackers are added bracing should be slighty buffed in order to balance out in favour for defenders.
I am all for a more dynamic siege experience but as it stands gates are as powerful as they should be if not a bit underpowered

From what I've heard constructor should be getting more prefabs. And making ladders from the current prefabs is already possible.

Opening and closing the gate can slow the attackers significantly on lower player counts.

The walls of Grimslade are very assailable, so are walls of Edhellond. Even Minas Tirith had wall assaults before the great constructor nerf. The same goes for Aldburg and hopefully future returning maps like Dale and Erebor.

The constructor being the only one bracing the gate is the point. The rest of the team should be defending the walls against the wall assault.

Yeah, ladder proofing is not great, but constructor can overcome it even now with just prefabs. It will be easier when he can retreive pure wood from team inventory or gets better assult prefabs.

All in all, gates are currently mostly just a checkpoint where the gameplay turns to running and punching a wall for a while without any good alternative, which is not very fun. Nor do the defenders have an incentive to hold them, preffering to just fortify only the flag itself.

 

[Stavrdaf]

The current problem is that most assailable walls are able to be assailed due to design oversight and not because they were specifically gameplay designed to be so. Because of how the system is designed flags are the ultimate goal and ,as you said, gates act like a stale checkpoint. Although defenders can, with employing certain tactics, slow the game significantly.

Personally, I wouldnt want to go back to the old spam wood everywhere you want system we had and I also disagree that constructor should be able to brace gates effectively all by himself. I do thing constructor should get more options as to cement itself as a useful but not gamechanging class

I think the system should give attackers more attack choices, slightly buffs bracing for defenders, increase gate opening time or have a way to jam the opening of gates (as said) (opening and closing strategy is goofy and shouldnt be a thing), give the option for constructor to be a more effective bracers but not replacing the need of the team to brace, add more useable defence options, murderholes, throwables etc. Buff attacker ram damage

Give constructor defenders and attackers more useful but controlled prefabs and make it so the two sides constructors fight their own battle alongside their team between destroying their opponents buildings and building their own. Prefabs that should be mostly be able to be used or concentrated in key sections and should not be placeable near spawns

Lastly if every prefab had health and was able to be destroyed by hitting it by all classes but was also able to be destroyed faster by constructor classes I think overall the 'contructor experience' would be significantly improved.

 

[NEMO_CZ]

I'm not sure we quite meet on the terminology. By prefabs I mean the ones that constructor can put anywhere. Not the other static, pre-placed buildables. The static ones are not much fun, because they take away the creativity.

 

[Stavrdaf]

When I said prefabs I meant everything from static to not static, health can be used instead of breaking blocks they can also have different states of damage that changes their appearance/blocks, they shouldnt be able to be placed in certain locations like spawns and static prefabs should exist in all key locations to give more options to both attackers and defenders and to guide/help the siege experience.

 

[NEMO_CZ]

Ok I do agree with protecting spawns. I do not love the notion of only being able to assault walls that were designed for it. That to paraphrase LimeeFox from another post feels like leading the player around like a toddler.