About the PvE siege*:
After some more attacks, I want to add some thoughts to my previous opinion:
- If you do the raid by breaking walls with trebuchets, bombs and battering rams, the gold reward alone would be too low to justify the time and resources needed. The XP from the boss would still make it worthwhile if (if!) you’re levelling thralls.
- Lightning storm is near useless against the castle. It deals miniscule damage to the building pieces. Used three storm spells on the castle’s roof, and some tiles were damaged by 10% or so - not a viable approach.
I don’t have any PvP experience, so I don’t know if that’s a bug with the spell or if it’s supposed to be this weak. But at least for a PvE encounter, it’s laughably weak. Maybe change the materials to T2? - The complexity of the of the central building’s layout should be reduced, as it causes many issues:
– Thralls teleport across the levels. Thrall AI always had a problem with three-dimensional-thinking and wayfinding, and the multi-story layout of that castle plays right into that weakness: “Where did my thrall go? Oh, he teleported two levels up and is getting pounded by the boss.”
– The number of building pieces may contribute to the strain the building puts on the game/computer. That’s a bit questionable, as my main base probably has a similar amount of pieces without causing such issues. But it’d be my candidate to look at.
– Sneaking into the base is fun, but too easy compared to a brute force approach. One can circumvent all the siege mechanics with a few simple tricks. Won’t post it here - not an exploit, but certainly a spoiler. - To fix that, I’d switch to a simpler design: a Stygian war camp, not a medieval european castle, more like Kraxus’ camp on the Isle of Siptah, less like Minas Tirith.
The last patches added glorious Stygian tents that would be very fitting for a Stygian war party and probably less strainful for the hardware.
The camp could be surrounded by wooden palisades like Kraxus’ camp. And maybe the Stygians used on old ruin as their main base where the commander resides among the treasures his soldiers looted from the Exiled Lands. - I’d consider downgrading the structure to T2 materials or make it less resistant to trebuchet and lightning storm attacks specifically, and balance the whole affair around that.
That way, it wouldn’t be too problematic when players will find ways to circumvent the walls - and they will. - I’d reduce the spawn rate of NPCs, but increase their health pool. That would keep the time and effort needed to break through them, but avoid turning the castle grounds into a gore-filled slaughterhouse.
- All soldiers despawn when the boss gets killed. That gives easy access to all treasure chests and encourages only killing the boss. I’d remove that - let them stay to take revenge on the attackers and guard the remaining treasure.
- The boss hits laughably hard. He’s doable, even to a potato player like me, but it’s still weird. He’s the commander of an army, not the Arena Champions punchy big brother.
Having him summon or buff his minions instead would be a more fitting mechanic in my view. The golems can give area-based damage buffs, maybe use that mechanic for him. He could have a damage shield or increased damage resistance while minions are near him, encouraging players to kill his goons before they face him.
One could even make him spawn only after x soldiers have been killed and/or y building pieces have been destroyed in the camp. That would make it harder to cheese the encounter.
*or event similar to a siege, but not actually being a siege, according to some definitions