Well analyzed.
As for the “stakes”, almost all other competitive games like FPS, fighting games, Dota-like games, they don’t reward you nothing after each round except your ranking goes up a bit. Yet they are the most popular genres. Why? Because the competition/combat is fun enough to let people forget about the stakes. You care about how well you played out, not how many points you take from your opponents. You enjoy the fight, cuz it’s enjoyable and satisfactory.
which sadly isn’t the case here in CE.
This new Siege and Treasure system as I see it, could serve as an opportunity to make the combat a little bit more enjoyable if done right. And I hope after a night of fighting, people will be saying
“Hey, I just destroyed a castle and killed 20 people straight! The fight was legendary!”
instead of
“Hey, I just looted 20 vaults of mats while nobody is around! Now those su*kers who’s the alpha!”