The Switch - Lessons from another game

[Dubanka]

dubanka talks like a politician, bla!, bla!, bla!

i gots fans.

and i dare say, that was the most constructively critical post i've received in a while.

[yoori]

I don't know what happened to this disscusion. It started nicely and went south.

Jooky presented balanced system allowing many playstyles. Poeple that want more safety(don't want to loose their main territory), can choose not to be warring. They still have to fight for additional lands. Now we need something to compensate the risk of loosing main land for tribes that choose that way. I think the best idea is to place most valuable resources in danger zones where non warring tribes can't claim land.

Many tribes will choose to stay out of war, focus on production and trade. They will have to get resources from other tribes, and sell their goods, it's faster to get goods this way for warring tribes than splitting time between alts. That's another factor in politics, who can score better trading agreement.

And last point deciding war with one siedge is ridiculous. Attackers should invest a lot of time and resources in preparation and it must be really hard to win a siedge.
If they loose they go home and prepare for defence.

Weapon and armor gets damaged in fight(loose durability faster), siedge equipment shuold too. You can't teleport anything into battle field you have to transport it. You can damage enemy's equipment before they get to you city. You can intercept resource tranports, weapon shipments. War will be much more interesting than just siegdes.

[Bear5732]

Honestly i don't think this will ever occur.
I don't think certain groups in game would allow this to occur.

Well you may be right, but lets be honest - safe zones, in one form or the other, are a necessary evil.

Why? Because games are meant to be fun, and it's no fun logging in for the first time ever only to be instantly ganked before you even know to press C to enter combat. (someone was complaining that this happened to them yesterday). Whether you like it or not, this game has a steep learning curve for people who just are unfamiliar with a somewhat realistic common sense game. And whether its a newbie island or a neutral tribe, there has to be something in place to give new players a shot at having fun and learning the game before rage quitting.

Also there has to be something in place that doesn't force a tribe to have a 24-7 defense. Nothing is more frustrating then logging in after a long week at work, to find that the European tribe just spent the last 24 hours demolishing everything your tribe had built over the last 3 months.

So even if they remove the safe zones as they are in place now, there will still have to be some sort of safe zone in place to keep the game fair and fun.

[jumpshot]

I don't see the fascination with Conquering mechanics, anyway.

I love to PvP, but these things are just contests of WHo HAs the Larger Zerg in every game I've played.

No, I don't equate "politics" with PvP. Or Mass Recruiting.

[Salvadore]

I don't see the fascination with Conquering mechanics, anyway.

I love to PvP, but these things are just contests of WHo HAs the Larger Zerg in every game I've played.

No, I don't equate "politics" with PvP. Or Mass Recruiting.

Which games have you played? With conquest mechanics?

The games I was involved with had zergs as well. Any time they abused their size and started flexing their muscles too much, various others would mount up and stop them. It was also very common that an organized tribe could easily beat a zerg with 2:1 or even 3:1 odds. Recruiting everyone you can and inflating as big as you can actually has many negative consequences in itself.

[FabricSoftener]

Anything that gives a player the ability to dodge accountability, in an accountability driven game is a huge, glaring, potential exploit.

A large and well organized pvp tribe will have multiple people with 2 accounts (or more)...of course that assuming that we get a game delivered that actually delivers...Second accounts will be used to set up crafting alts. Crafting alts will be set up in quaint little unassuming villages with names like, Springwater Trading Company, Bobs Bed and Breakfast, etc. etc. The mission of these alt towns will be to craft items for the tribes militant branch.

This frees up the military wing of the tribe to act completely without consequence...the logistics that drive their machine can not be shut down, or even hindered, since they are protected.

In sb this existed - fly catcher trees: just a bind point that players from a guild would use to stage raids on assaults on others. If someone seiged it, usually they would not even show because it was easily replaceable. Typically groups would have a built up 'roller city' where they funneled their cash and resources to produce weapons. Players spent huge amount of time trying to track down the 'real owners' of roller towns, sometimes seiging them just to see who showed up. The flyl catcher: roller town dynamic was bad, since it mostly removed accountability from the game.

The system that is on its way to implementation is worse, as the players will not be able to hold these new 'craft tribes' accountable for the actions of their parent tribe.

Please think about the ways we can abuse a system before it gets implemented...if it can be, we will do it...it's in our nature. Unfortunately.

I bought an account for my sister and I used my credit card to do it.
Sorry but form a legal standpoint I dont think its possible to not have alts in this or any other game.

[Dubanka]

I don't know what happened to this disscusion. It started nicely and went south.

Jooky presented balanced system allowing many playstyles. Poeple that want more safety(don't want to loose their main territory), can choose not to be warring. They still have to fight for additional lands. Now we need something to compensate the risk of loosing main land for tribes that choose that way. I think the best idea is to place most valuable resources in danger zones where non warring tribes can't claim land.

Many tribes will choose to stay out of war, focus on production and trade. They will have to get resources from other tribes, and sell their goods, it's faster to get goods this way for warring tribes than splitting time between alts. That's another factor in politics, who can score better trading agreement.

And last point deciding war with one siedge is ridiculous. Attackers should invest a lot of time and resources in preparation and it must be really hard to win a siedge.
If they loose they go home and prepare for defence.

Weapon and armor gets damaged in fight(loose durability faster), siedge equipment shuold too. You can't teleport anything into battle field you have to transport it. You can damage enemy's equipment before they get to you city. You can intercept resource tranports, weapon shipments. War will be much more interesting than just siegdes.

i will mostly agree with you here.

[mrcalhou]

What Yoori said is pretty much what I've been saying in this thread. Not exactly, but close.

[Koll]

I fully agree.

There could be ways to think outside the box for a solution, though. It all comes down to what benefits there are to declare a tribe for war. If the benefits are mostly superfluous, then we have major problems. But what if the benefits were truly epic & required to maintain progress?

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking about crafting machines. Only warring tribes would be able to venture into certain parts of the wilderness & discover lost technology that allows mass production. It could also be that these machines allow for the creation of MUCH BETTER combat gear & city defense structures. And here is the catch, these machines can ONLY be placed in the tribal zones of warring tribes. This will eliminate the effectiveness alt tribes & let crafter tribes know that they will never have access to all the game offers unless they accept some element of risk.

I actually agree with you. It does makes sense to give a purpose or a "sense" behind being a warring tribe other than the full blown pvp. Hopefully during the "prelude" period they will work this out.

[Drevar]

I thought the "reward" for choosing open war was...OPEN WAR. No more silly safe zones that you hate so much for you or your enemy. You guys want full blown warfare without being held back by carebear limitations, well there you go.

Now you need an incentive to fight? I thought the FFA WAS the incentive. You guys are just out looking for a good fight right? You want to play your little war games with others who enjoy tit for tat, back and forth pitched battles. You want to see your enemies driven before you and hear the lamentation of the women, right?....

Or was that all just BS to cover your real desire to be able to harvest QQ tears from people who don't want to play the sociopath game?