Overhaul Sieging Rules.

[Thyrzul]

How about a change in perception regarding the issue? And why?

How about, instead of considering required time investment for maintenance vs required time investment for a siege, we consider required time investment for maintenance vs continuous availability of PoB-exclusive perks, as well as required time investment for defense vs required time investment for a siege?

That way we would compare two PoB-dependent factors with eachother (requirements vs rewards of having one) as well as two player-dependent factors with eachother. And suddenly things become balancable. Balance construction and maintenance costs to the available perks, ship modules, or storage space for ores virtually anywhere, or take the opposite direction, just like how module manufacture costs already determine module prices on the market. And then balance the offenders against the defenders in a siege, on which I'll elaborate more, after all this thread is about sieges.

What do I mean exactly? And why would that be good for us?

Stretch sieges long enough to eliminate issues stemming from a surprise attack of overwhelming forces, or from timezone differences, eliminate bases getting wrecked overnight within just a few hours, or minutes, by a fleet of a dozen dreadnoughts, allow players on both sides to meet before a siege is over. Buff hull points for that.

Of course we don't want unilateral changes favoring only defenders, that would immediately cause drama and complaints from the other side of the debate. Keep bases vulnerable enough not to require whole fleets to make progress, so that problematic bases can still be destroyed, even if it would take time. Nerf repair rates accordingly.

The resulting balance will require less ships and their DPS to overcome the repair rates, but more overall damage dealth to the base until its destruction. The resulting balance will yield a wider range of player count/time investment ratios in the case of a siege, making it more dynamic, but also quite robust by stretching the lenght of sieges long enough to allow defenders sufficient chance to react and attempt proper defense.

Would that not screw up things more than fixing them? Am I not biased a bit?

The aim of this proposal is to achieve a state in which, during sieges, the determining type of encounter isn't player vs PoB combat, but player vs player combat. However, keep in mind, that this proposal only defines the proposed direction of change, through rebalance of mechanics instead of more and more rules and restrictions, but leaves the decision over specifics to the balance development team. For that a detailed spreadsheet of several tabs visualizing the effects of various combinations of changes to each of the two factors - hull points and repair rates - to various extents has been provided to members of the team.

This proposal does not take the inequal distribution of opposing forces per region or per degree of lawfulness into account, leaving those factors for the members of the community to balance. This proposal does not take the validity of justification for constructing or destructing a base either, leaving that factor for the administation team to take care of.

Lastly, this proposal tries to stay free from any favoritism, subjectivity or bias, and thus is aiming to favor both sides by creating a safe middle-ground in which the two sides of a siege can duke it out between themselves. In short, it's not meant to decide who's right and it leaves (or grants) the decision to (for) players themselves about who's left.

Meh, tl;dr?

1. Buff hull points and nerf repair rates big time.

Yeah, cool, but this thread is about rules, not balance...

And I find that to be part of the issue. That part where people fail to recognize the actual issue, where people fail to recognize which factors actually could and should be balanced against eachother, where people are more eager to look for more and more new rules to regulate a gameplay feature instead of looking for available options to balance its mechanics.

Read this or not, heed this or not, agree or disagree, it's up to you. Though, if you take the time to read all of this, I thank you very much. I cannot guarantee I won't respond to comments or try to argue in defense of the above points with reason, however.

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