Regional Attack Restrictions - Alternatives

ysosad:

1) No restrictions, period. Chucking expendable foot en masse at the walls is classic. Rune loves more blood; he should enjoy it . And really; how many CP is one low fame player going to generate with say... 10 normal solos and 8 co-ops? The wall reduction should make it so they still contribute; just not as much as low fame players who defend at the same rate. Since the low-fame defenders already get to contribute, it's my opinion the attackers should as well. As the wall degrades the attackers slowly eliminate this advantage until they can 'storm the walls' so to speak.

2) Increased effectiveness of walls is, imo, a minor tweak not a large one. As Anduin says; the entire focus of a faction should tear walls down faster than they can be rebuilt. As it stands there have been some complaints in Olympus that walls just aren't worth the res with the smaller CP containers. When I suggested increased effectiveness it was mostly to address this complaint. I do not think walls, in general, should be made 'stronger'. Just that they should be slightly more beneficial (or cheaper, but this goes against my view that things should cost res lol) so guilds feel they are worth investing in.

3) I left this part deliberately vague because I actually figured other players would have a better idea as to how to 'cost' the repairs. I like the idea of progressive increase a lot. Coupled with the wall getting less effecient it will put a lot of pressure on the defenders if they are stuck in their capital.

4) Gems for money is an equation a developer cannot afford to ignore. There is no reasonable limit to what some people are willing to spend because people do not exist in equal wealth situations. Especially as the game grows and more big spenders join up, any mechanism which can be exploited for money eventually will. For those of you who are our current big spenders; 1) I heart you guys, thanks for supporting this game I love to play. 2) I do not intend this as in any way a judgement or condemnation as to how your spend your money. It's not my money, it's not my business .

I would also like to link the amount a player can contribute to their CPs that cycle to limit the effect of players just signing on and 'dumping' as much res to the walls as they can. Active defense should be required to rebuild.

Anduin:

This is why I interpret the dark 'army' as reinforcements arriving, not an active attack by the troops in the field. Supply lines are a huge part of warfare, and at this point the dark faction's supply lines are as long as they can get... It's the oldest rule in the book, even comes before "Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line."

I think changing the way capital armies are controlled and introducing guild launched armies is part of the planned updates (sketchy on details here lol) so the opportunity to set up dark guilds closer to capital then launch armies from there should alleviate some of your concerns.

One quick thought; what if the dark army launched not directly from the capital but from the 'centre' of a factions territory? It would be sensible for any organized military to keep a large chunk of reserves where they geographically can respond quickest but are still sheltered from the main front. This way as the dark faction had marched across the map their 'launch point' would have advanced at 1/2 that speed. Final situation puts it in the middle of the map; light army still attacks faster but rate is reduced by 50%.

Scaren:

As it stands this situation already exists for Aether, only the time frame is different. Using Olympus as the example, if Dark Faction is as dominant as they seem to be after a map reset the map will quickly go right back to this same setup, they will eventually win, gaining more aether every time. I'm not sure how large a factor it will be with the current costs and reward tiers, but it does exist. I do admit adding res differential could be much more problematic.

One reason I would like 'fast' sieges of the capitals is that short term economic damage is not going to cripple an individual player. Plenty of people survived the recent crunches due to the economy fiddles, and active players still managed to thrive. Nobody liked it, and some people were driven away, but I believe that was more by the belief that the economy was 'totally like broke and eff this game anyway' than the actual period of unstability.

Players can also choose not to lose ground in terms of progress one very simple way; don't donate res to the capital walls. Focus on growing your character anyway and either a) accept defeat or b) hope other's bail you out. I see this as a morale/surrender function.

Scaren wrote:

ysosad wrote:

I'll update the 1st post to include solutions that individuals suggest going forward.

My solution is to allow Nightmare for both the regions. That's how it used to be. Still allows the defending side to have the advantage but gives the attacking side enough firepower to take both the capital and it's regions. Larry your ideas weren't bad but would be way too of an advantage for the other side after they had taken the capital. They would be left with all the aether, resources, and gold in the game. Basically just letting them take the capital again.

That doesn't sound like a solution to me at all. For starters I don't think it does give the attacking side enough firepower to take the capital, because you get unlimited coop battles on defense. Our nightmare runs have a limit, so you can always choose to defend just enough to get the job done, and we can't raise the ante. Additionally many of our players can't even do nightmare yet.

There really is no justifiable reason why we are barred from attacking at our full potential. We should be playing on an even playing field here. The soccer team analogy I brought up earlier describes the situation perfectly.

Added LSLarry's alternative to 1st post.

Scaren, Johntheright suggested the same previously (Alternative 4).

Thank you.

Anduin wrote:

Scaren wrote:

ysosad wrote:

I'll update the 1st post to include solutions that individuals suggest going forward.

My solution is to allow Nightmare for both the regions. That's how it used to be. Still allows the defending side to have the advantage but gives the attacking side enough firepower to take both the capital and it's regions. Larry your ideas weren't bad but would be way too of an advantage for the other side after they had taken the capital. They would be left with all the aether, resources, and gold in the game. Basically just letting them take the capital again.

That doesn't sound like a solution to me at all.  For starters I don't think it does give the attacking side enough firepower to take the capital, because you get unlimited coop battles on defense.  Our nightmare runs have a limit, so you can always choose to defend just enough to get the job done, and we can't raise the ante.  Additionally many of our players can't even do nightmare yet.

There really is no justifiable reason why we are barred from attacking at our full potential.  We should be playing on an even playing field here.  The soccer team analogy I brought up earlier describes the situation perfectly.

Lots of your players can do Nightmare. Secondly not many lighties^{except Steinhund} are even fighting that hard. No one on the lightside wants this to be a prolonged stalemate. The Justifiable reason for not just being able to easily take the capital makes perfect sense to me and I even thought it was good in the past. However ever since the Aether shop I've been thinking maybe there does need to be a change. I think Nightmare could be that change and work. Like I said someone could try to coop but they wouldn't find many partners.

Scaren wrote:

Anduin wrote:

Scaren wrote:

ysosad wrote:

I'll update the 1st post to include solutions that individuals suggest going forward.

My solution is to allow Nightmare for both the regions. That's how it used to be. Still allows the defending side to have the advantage but gives the attacking side enough firepower to take both the capital and it's regions. Larry your ideas weren't bad but would be way too of an advantage for the other side after they had taken the capital. They would be left with all the aether, resources, and gold in the game. Basically just letting them take the capital again.

That doesn't sound like a solution to me at all.  For starters I don't think it does give the attacking side enough firepower to take the capital, because you get unlimited coop battles on defense.  Our nightmare runs have a limit, so you can always choose to defend just enough to get the job done, and we can't raise the ante.  Additionally many of our players can't even do nightmare yet.

There really is no justifiable reason why we are barred from attacking at our full potential.  We should be playing on an even playing field here.  The soccer team analogy I brought up earlier describes the situation perfectly.

Lots of your players can do Nightmare. Secondly not many lighties^{except Steinhund} are even fighting that hard. No one on the lightside wants this to be a prolonged stalemate. The Justifiable reason for not just being able to easily take the capital makes perfect sense to me and I even thought it was good in the past. However ever since the Aether shop I've been thinking maybe there does need to be a change. I think Nightmare could be that change and work. Like I said someone could try to coop but they wouldn't find many partners.

If it was just Steinhund this would have been over long ago, plenty of players are fighting back.

The idea that taking the capital would be 'easy' if we are not muzzled so that we can not attack at our fullest is simply not true. There was nothing easy about getting to the capital.  We had to fight the entire light side, and the light army for months to slowly advance to this point.  

There would be nothing easy about taking the capital with it's huge CP pool, with the light constantly fighting back, even if we could do coops.

If we were limited to nightmare I guarantee you that capital would never fall until the majority of the light side quit the game.  The only reason the dark capital fell on Erevos is because the dark side eventually quit.

I think there needs to be a mechanic that does not involve CP reduction, or you will get exactly what we have now - a stalemate, and huge numbers of players quitting the game.

Olympus is grinding to a halt, no hexs have changed hands for about a week now, % fluctuation on hexs is probably about max 10%..... because players can't be bothered to play any more, they are leaving the game in droves

If something is not to be changed then kindly consider merging back the two servers as it is becoming a ghost town....a boring stalemate ghost town

The stalemate horse is hitting for 1200+ CP again. Just what we didn't need.

I don't understand how anybody thought it was a good idea to buff the horse in this situation.

It is not a coincidence that progress halted where it did, and it has nothing to do with motivation, effort, or persistence and everything to do with incredibly simple math that you learn in Primary school.

Cooperatives+Solos (Normal+Hard+Nightmare+Insane+Suicide)>Solos (Insane+Suicide)

Subtract Insane+Suicide from both sides and you get:

Cooperatives+Solos (Normal+Hard+Nightmare)> 0

PvP-AI has been slated for quite some time now and, explicitly or otherwise, it is being touted as the solution to this issue. I can be open-minded, it may indeed solve the problem and then I, as well as a good number of the community, will thank you for improving (probably) the game.

However, let's not put all of our eggs in one basket. It might not be released "soon" or it might not work correctly or it might have a nominal to zero impact on the stalemate situation (see equation above).

It seems, to me, that the most responsible course of action would to plan for the possibility and implement one of the suggested alternatives or something similar.

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Scenario 1: PvP-AI has not been introduced as of March 7, release date is uncertain. (Alternative adopted March 8 )

Scenario 2: PvP-AI introduced March 7. PvP-AI is effective, but as of March 21 no significant change has occurred regarding regional control. (Alternative adopted March 22)

Scenario 3: PvP-AI has unintended balance/functionality issues. (Alternative adopted immediately)

Or...wait...let me reread that another hundred times.

I continue to be impressed at the well thought out post in this thread. My concern is that this is again falling on deaf ears. Only Rune Slayer can make the changes we have asked for.

I hope this changes for the better of all soon but we have been at this for weeks without any real change on Olympus.

ST

There are now 54 pages of light players, and only 38 pages of dark players on Olympus.  This is what automated "balance" does.

So.. This thread is so cool that I felt like randomly reviving it.. Ok, last time we had almost no issues with ending the cycle, thanks to overwhelming numbers of one side. If anything, with suicides and many people being able to do them it's not that bad. Or is it...

Any fresh perspective on this?
Or stalemate (lovely term 'the stalemate horse')?
Last post by anduin.. so relevant now too ;/

Also..

Quote :

edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : can't count, too many points...)

Perfect.