Palisades - A player town wall/gate solution

[Woody]

Problem

Walled player towns present a few key issues and as it stands now, we've been told loosely that SV is hesitant as to whether walls for free placed towns should be a thing. I would actually agree with them here and ultimately, am still on the fence about it . That said I want to present some ways I thought it could still work so hey, here are the key issues I'm addressing:

• Walls prevent interaction with the area that they are built around
• It removes a lot of potential emergent gameplay by not being able to enter the town when closed
• It can be an eye sore and not feel apart of the world if done incorrectly

Among other issues. However, I'm going to be focusing on these.

Solution

So even with a potential solution it still may be justified that we shouldn't get walls around our player towns and that's that. But the feeling of a well established town having some form of defence feels too apart of the games theme to be overlooked.

Palisade walls

Allow players that manage to form a town with buildings positioned close to one another (at least 4+ buildings that overlap with at least 3+ other buildings), the ability to create a palisade wall around the outside of the structures. This is determined through an opt-in approach by all house owners involved in building the town - whether that's through some TC system or guild system; that's for SV to design. By overlapping the buildings sufficiently, they're then able to build a palisade wall around the outskirts of the buildings, so long as there is a path for the wall to be built via the connected properties and the property radius.

Blue = property radius
H = Houses/Structures
Brown = Palisade Wall


the regimented placement is for illustrative purposes only but would still work with a more fluid/free placement of the buildings so long as they're packed closely to one another.

From there, a town can add 1-2 gates that lead into the walled off area.

Gates & cost

So with having a wall comes the ability to close the gates and protect the town where necessary. This creates issues if the gates are always closed so instead, we want gates only to be used as a defensive mechanism. As such, when a gate is closed, it comes with a cost. While you can lock the town down to effectively prevent conflict, your NPCs that provide services are impacted:

• Services such as NPC bankers, stables, libraries, inns, vendors etc. inside the area are locked down and not accessible while the walls are locked (effectively, you've run the town bell and identified there is a threat to the town's safety - your citizens will then take shelter).
  • Only workbenches and player chests/storage in houses are accessible.
• NPC services increase their treasury costs (assuming MO1 similarities) for every 10 minutes that the town is locked down that day.
  • You're costing them their bread winning by locking the town down. They're not there for free you know.

A gate shouldn't be something individuals habitually open and close as they come and go from the town. The default assumption should be that gates always remain open, especially if your town offers services to it's citizens and others. Therefore, closing a palisade gate should be considered a meaningful decision to make. A gate when closed can only be reopened after 10 minutes of it being closed. Similarly, you can't reclose the gate for another 10 minutes. While this seems unrealistic, it presents as a necessary mechanic to discourage gates always being closed. It also allows for at least one tick in the NPC treasury taxes to occur.

To make it more immersive, it could be that the animation takes up to 5 minutes to fully open or close due to the weight - but you can still get in and out through the opening gap in that time.

Additionally

• Palisades should be scalable with ladders that can be crafted and hauled by players - they should however, be very heavy/cumbersome to haul on player/houseback
• Palisades cost a lot of wood and other fastening materials to build, time to erect, and have a significant upkeep cost via resources or treasury gold.
• Stone walls are reserved for keeps only. No stone walls for player towns/hamlets.
• Palisades can not be built on or through, Rocks, Trees, Rivers, Paths, Fixed ruins/structures.
• Palisades can have a walkway around the inside as well as larger tower fixtures either inside attached or detached from the wall itself. These cost a lot more to build and maintain.

Solving the problem

• Walls prevent interaction with the area that they are built around

Given that gates are incentivised to remain open and cost the owners in significant expense in doing so, this shouldn't be an issue. Furthermore, given walls can only be erected near permanent structures and houses, walling off larger areas becomes a problem of scale, given a group would need to build significantly more structures to get a wider area protected by walls.

• It removes a lot of potential emergent gameplay by not being able to enter the town when closed

This is still very much true, it prevents gameplay from occurring with the occupants of the area when the gates are closed. However, given that aggressors will likely be the only ones triggering the closure of gates, this becomes less of an issue and is gameplay in itself. Those wanting to trade or interact with the inhabitants are more than likely going to be able to walk right through the gates at any other point outside of aggressors being nearby.

• It can be an eye sore and not feel apart of the world if done incorrectly

By tying the layout and design of the palisades to the existence of closely placed player housing and structures formed in a cluster (as seen historically in real life representation of palisade forts in medieval periods), this occurrence should be mitigated. Most layouts would either be rectangular or spherical which fits thematically with the existence of player towns having some form of protection for it's civilians. They would also be encouraged to be smaller in size, at least until they build significantly more structures.

 

[Bernfred]

imo only pet-stopping earth walls or wooden spikes around settlements
its imo boring enough that you can wall in keeps

 

[Amadman]

I think another major thing you are missing with the free placement walls is the issues with AI pathing. Having only pre defined walls allows sv to address these issues much easier.

I honestly do not believe walls are needed for towns and such. Players can do like many of the npc towns and build at places that have natural features that will make it easier to control access and defend their location.

 

[Woody]

I think another major thing you are missing with the free placement walls is the issues with AI pathing. Having only pre defined walls allows sv to address these issues much easier.

Wouldn't the same issue be present with the assumption there is going to be free-place player housing? They will need to find a way to address navmesh/pathfinding in a world where free placement is possible, walls or not.

 

[Nisse]

Incentives like you describe only matter if the players care more about the penalties than about simply blocking others. Some won't, and content will be locked down, which is a net loss for the game IMO. If it's possible within the game mechanics, someone will abuse it. Better to leave the walled areas for keeps and NPC towns, where SV can pre-determine the locations.

 

[Woody]

Incentives like you describe only matter if the players care more about the penalties than about simply blocking others.

I agree and this much is true about almost any game system that has the potential to be abused. That said, I still believe these kinds of considerations are still doable, given the appropriate time in order to have them properly implemented and balanced.

Obviously, the path of least resistance and effort from SV's point of view will be not to have walls, and that's also completely fine.

 

[Amadman]

Wouldn't the same issue be present with the assumption there is going to be free-place player housing? They will need to find a way to address navmesh/pathfinding in a world where free placement is possible, walls or not.

True, there will still be issues with AI pathfinding.

However walls pose extra challenges because they are by design made to block and close things off.

 

[PoisonArrows]

I too have thought of how to defend player made cities, i just made 2 post. 1 about traps and one about auto turrets maned by guards. I also believe in a Gate and wall function with also Dumping Oil on enemies heads as a Weapon on gates. But i don't want to see Walls being built around resources and around dungeons that was beyond stupid it took the fun right out of the game.... But some walls limited around player houses/castles/keeps. Seems fine to me.

 

[Rhias]

True, there will still be issues with AI pathfinding.

However walls pose extra challenges because they are by design made to block and close things off.

Players already farm Risars by hitting them with EQs through the camp - wall.
And the AI seems to be to stupid to walk outside their palisade entrance. Instead they stay within their camp palisade and wait for the next EQ.

 

[Woody]

Players already farm Risars by hitting them with EQs through the camp - wall.
And the AI seems to be to stupid to walk outside their palisade entrance. Instead they stay within their camp palisade and wait for the next EQ.

I think we all agree AI in general still needs a lot of work. If SV cant find a more robust solution by EA its going to straight away put a lot of potential players off the game

 

[Tzone]

Just hire lictors. Problem solved.