For the work on the Siege mode, I was entrusted with one task: To make the mode more fun to the player. Based on feedback from the community and testers, I realised that the game mode had a very straight and obvious solution which did not encourage the player to make any meaningful actions. To make matters worse, the mode was exploitative which led to a strong anti-climax.
Looking at those issues, I realised that the flow of gameplay had to be altered. A more complex system where the player has to make more choices over time, where losing is less a binary situation and where the player has more changes at doing something extraordinary.
I first started by changing the recourse system. The player now starts with a less resources, but gains more resources over time. This way, the player is given a window of opportunity of spawning new forces as the conditions on the battle change.
The Capture Points that allow this also bring a second element to play: Risk splitting and secondary points of interest. In the original design, the player was ought to camp in one position which makes the playing field very small. With these new points, the player has to spread his forces if he wants to keep access to the resources which he gains over time.
With these changes, testing commenced: Changing resources, the amount of Capture Points and the amount of rounds that the game takes have all been tested. Testing was also done for Player vs Player and team games, which too granted positive results.
With these results, positive feedback from the other developers and the community, the mode is now on schedule to be released.
