City destruction changes

Rinzai

Melodie said:

I am both interested and terrified to see what happens.

I also have a feeling getting level 101 is probably not going to happen anytime soon. :P

Go hunt. it's easy.

don't blame being lazy on city destruction being so much better!

Daslin

Seems like Cyrene's figured it out!

- 2013/11/24 07:47:29 - Cyla has been slain by the might of a pirate with an eye-patch.

- 2013/11/24 07:48:26 - His countenance serene, a venerable Mojushai monk steps lightly over the 

remains of Xer and silently returns to his post.

- 2013/11/24 07:48:27 - His countenance serene, a venerable Mojushai monk steps lightly over the 

remains of Hasar and silently returns to his post.

- 2013/11/24 07:48:30 - Cutting him down to size, an imperial guardsman has calmly dispatched Xer.

- 2013/11/24 07:48:32 - Cutting her down to size, an imperial guardsman has calmly dispatched Adison.

- 2013/11/24 07:48:34 - His countenance serene, a venerable Mojushai monk steps lightly over the 

remains of Cahin and silently returns to his post.

- 2013/11/24 07:48:35 - His countenance serene, a venerable Mojushai monk steps lightly over the 

remains of Aetous and silently returns to his post.

- 2013/11/24 07:48:39 - His countenance serene, a venerable Mojushai monk steps lightly over the 

remains of Saibel and silently returns to his post.

- 2013/11/24 07:48:41 - His countenance serene, a venerable Mojushai monk steps lightly over the 

remains of Saibel and silently returns to his post.

- 2013/11/24 07:48:44 - Defending the Heart of the Vashnars, a mountain archer has fatally pierced 

Khalaz with a volley of diamond-tipped arrows.

(ex)(cdbk) 4431h|100% 2823m|100% || XP:98.7% 02:49:12.037-

In defence of Lady Melodie Le'Murzen, Arcthyos, a guardian angel has torn Khalaz's soul from his 

body.

let the guards do the work!

Hasar

People grow ballz pls.

Like Ashtan!

PLS PLS PLS

Cahin

Hasar said:

People grow ballz pls.

Like Ashtan!

PLS PLS PLS

No way. Best defense is to evacuate the city. It even makes sense from a roleplay perspective. If you leave your house to go shopping, for example, nothing bad can happen to your house while you are gone.

Melodie

Rinzai said:

Melodie said:

I am both interested and terrified to see what happens.

I also have a feeling getting level 101 is probably not going to happen anytime soon. :P

Go hunt. it's easy.

don't blame being lazy on city destruction being so much better!

I didn't plan to stop hunting, I just also planned I was probably going to die a lot. Priest and all.

First experiment was not that fun for me. But we'll see.

Also above was thanks to Halos, not me this time around. I literally went out to resurrect a non-com who got killed and wasn't blessed, suddenly everyone moves and then they die. Was confusing (but amazing, ily Halos).

Edit: Editted because I'm just a little tired right now.

Xer

Having an alternative way to sanction raid besides killing five people in city would be nice. Currently, people can simply avoid raiders by moving in and out of city, or into the sewers. The only real viable solution then to start a raid in a situation where people don't want to defend and will simply move back and forth between totems/guards/defendable/sewers, would be to kill a bunch of non-com novices, which is obviously not a desirable solution.

Something along the lines of a five minute timer the moment five raiders enter the city would be nice. While I can understand the reasoning of allowing a city to essentially "ignore" a raid and mitigate the damage done to the city, being able to completely foil a raid simply because no one wants to defend should also not be so easily feasible. As the amount of damage that can be done in a single hour, given no defence, is already limited to one room, I feel that an alternative way to sanction a raid shouldn't be a problem. It also alleviates the problem of waiting around 30 minutes for five kills, before realising that they were so spread out that they didn't all count towards the sanctioned raid count >.>

As a side note - We went and raided Ashtan. TANKS WERE BUGGY. Hasar died. And there was much rejoicing.

Makarios

Yeah, there were a few tank bugs on Friday/Saturday morning due to the way they'd previously been set up (since previously the tanks never actually got deleted when used). Those should all be resolved now.

Cahin

I wouldn't call anything that directly or indirectly results in Hasar's death a bug.

Penwize

Xer said:

The only real viable solution then to start a raid would be to kill a bunch of non-com novices, which is obviously not a desirable solution.

That wouldn't even work would it? Don't you need to kill 5 soldiers?  Killing noncoms just winds up costing them xp for nothing.

Xer

According to the HELP CITYDESTRUCTION file, it said...

A sanctioned raid will commence automatically after a certain number of in-city citizen deaths within a specified timeframe. Once underway, all experience loss (defenders) and gain (attackers and defenders) will be suspended within the limits of the city being raided.

So I assumed that included non-soldier deaths.

Makarios

As people seem to be neglecting this as well, it is probably worth pointing out that if a raider is holding a tank and dies (before activating and such), the tank will fall from their inventory and can be captured. It pains me deeply every time I see it happen and the defenders all wander off and leave it there.

Santar

That's the first thing me and @Sothantos tested.

He picked up a tank, walked into the barracks, and said "devour me".

Had been wanting a piece of that guy, too.

Xer

Disarming a tank gave me about 0.9% experience at level 94. I think there were two that Ashtan dropped, so about 2% gained from defense. I'm curious as to how experience gain will be calculated upon destroying rooms - I felt in the old city destruction, the amount of experience one got per room was far far less than what one could do via hunting, meaning that the incentives for raiding were relatively minimal (at higher levels of course). Obviously raiding isn't just about the exp, but I'm still curious about it haha. I also guess that disarming tanks that are at higher levels, give more experience?

Nim

Xer said:

Having an alternative way to sanction raid besides killing five people in city would be nice. Currently, people can simply avoid raiders by moving in and out of city, or into the sewers. The only real viable solution then to start a raid in a situation where people don't want to defend and will simply move back and forth between totems/guards/defendable/sewers, would be to kill a bunch of non-com novices, which is obviously not a desirable solution.

I feel like the kill count requirement is somewhat punishing to novices in general. Even if you avoid targeting non-combat novices, if the defending city's reluctant to meet their invaders, you're more likely to kill inexperienced players than experienced ones if you try to force their hand.

Like, I don't think most of the Cyrenians that got killed by Mhaldor were really that into combat other than myself - and even then, my death was strictly and solely due to my own carelessness and comparative inexperience!

Arditi

They weren't part of your city defenses, and claiming that they were is disingenuous, whether it be for @Achilles math or me being a sarcastic jerk. However, it was an attempt to reach the requirement because your actual defenders deduced that we couldn't do anything if you guys sat on a monolith and a guard stack.

The requirement to kill X citizens within the city is silly, because it's going to lead to the actual defenders refusing to engage and the aggressors targeting anyone who doesn't have the good sense to get to a guard stack and a monolith.

The original system encouraged people to QQ and come back later because destroying five rooms took up an hour of people going AFK in the destroyed rooms. This current system encourages people to QQ because there's no actual incentive for them to defend: The aggressors can't get anywhere if they can't kill anyone, and all the defenders have to do is sit there, radiance a few people, and wait for everyone to say "Screw it, going home".

Arditi

Hell, Cyrene would honestly be better off by working out a time-share agreement with Targossas: Cyrene defends Targossas, Targossas defends Cyrene, neither city actually gets rooms destroyed because Mhaldor and Ashtan can't charge the tanks off of the people doing the defending.

There. Hire me as your new minister of security, Cyrene.

Makarios

This is a pretty incredibly hard problem to solve on our end. On one end of the scale we have the issue of people destroying rooms in empty cities (which are much more problematic now potentially) and on the other defenders refusing to engage to allow a sanction to start. Obviously, neither cenario is something we want to encourage.

Allowing sanction to start after x minutes isn't really an acceptable solution. This would just make the process of raiding an empty city have an additional windup, which would put us right back where we started.

Its possible we can do something with checking how many online citizens compared to raiders, but something like this is hard to implement in a way that doesn't seem contrived. "Your enemies don't have enough people to be raided" or such doesn't really make much sense from an in character perspective.

The key point really is that if we want to make the system not off hours workable we have to require some kind of interaction between raiders and defenders.

Santar

I think what we need is some, limited way to sanction if the defenders do indeed take the "we're not going to do anything" route. It would need to be limited as to not allow people to use up all 5 of their tanks at off-peak times, or we'd be right back where we started.

Here's my suggestion: Once per achaean year, the Minister of War can simply "sanction raid" to allow for one tank worth of destruction. This would allow attackers to still 'take the intiative' so to speak in forcing their defenders to try to stop them, but it'd be a pretty infrequent thing with minimal damage possible.

Melodie

It's a tough problem. I've been trying to think of a solution, but honestly I'm empty-handed so far.

For Cyrene at least, it's not as if we particuarly want to just sit there and do nothing - I know I was antzy. But when you're outmatched not only in numbers, but skill, it makes us have almost no reason to go forward. I'm not going to argue the most recent raid because there's no point to, but either way, I'm pretty sure neither of us were having (much) fun.

I'll keep thinking on things. Hopefully some sort of acceptable compromise can be brought together.

Jovolo

It makes just as much sense to have the precondition of x city soldiers logged in at the start of a raid compared to x city soldier deaths to start a raid. Except the former doesn't encourage murdering inexperienced stragglers, and counterracts turtling until the raiders leave. Shouldn't even require the soldiers to be in city. Just logged in.

?

Santar

I think the logged in route is a poor way to go about things. "Logged in" can mean a lot of things. It can mean that @Achilles forgot to log off in Aurora's temple for 12 hours. It can mean that Santar is on his ship with conjure ghost defense looping his timeout. It can mean that @Silas is in nirvana. It can mean that @Draqoom is logged in on dial-up. It can mean that @Sothantos is logged in during class. It can mean that @Daeir is logged in from his phone.

Basically, the fact that people are 'logged in' doesn't really note whether or not they're going to engage in combat.

You could have people that are in the middle of QQing when the raid starts, for example.

Nim

Makarios said:

This is a pretty incredibly hard problem to solve on our end. On one end of the scale we have the issue of people destroying rooms in empty cities (which are much more problematic now potentially) and on the other defenders refusing to engage to allow a sanction to start. Obviously, neither cenario is something we want to encourage.

Allowing sanction to start after x minutes isn't really an acceptable solution. This would just make the process of raiding an empty city have an additional windup, which would put us right back where we started.

Its possible we can do something with checking how many online citizens compared to raiders, but something like this is hard to implement in a way that doesn't seem contrived. "Your enemies don't have enough people to be raided" or such doesn't really make much sense from an in character perspective.

The key point really is that if we want to make the system not off hours workable we have to require some kind of interaction between raiders and defenders.

One idea, although not a perfect solution to all of your problems, is that you could have the raid trigger be based on the military ranking of each citizen killed. It doesn't really keep cities from just refusing to fight, but it does lessen the impact combat'll have on non-combatants.

As far as keeping people from refusing to defend, I think that's impossible to do - Achaea is a game, you can't really force people to play it. The better solution is to give them reasons for defending. Maybe reward them for putting up an active defense at all, even if it's not successful, or make the rewards higher if the odds are against them.

Also, improving rewards for killing people could go a long way too. Limiting EXP gain on the killing blow is a troubling concept if you're shooting for group oriented gameplay. Rewarding people for playing supporting roles (eg. webbing people, bombing people, hanged manning people, impaling people, putting up retardation vibes, etc.) I think can only help!

Makarios

I'm personally not a fan of group shared xp. It pretty much eliminates one of the few definite benefits of going at someone alone. That's not remotely my call to make though!

Dunn

Jhui just started killing guards.

There's your incentive.

Hasar said:

People grow ballz pls.

Cooper

Makarios said:

I'm personally not a fan of group shared xp. It pretty much eliminates one of the few definite benefits of going at someone alone. That's not remotely my call to make though!

I am a big fan of group experience. When you're an artied monk/dragon, you get a ton of kills. A ton. In Shallam's raids/defense it was common for me to get half of the kills. I didn't need the experience, but it was always nice to see that experience bar jump up.

Now take a level 70 Alchemist or Paladin, they are not going to get nearly as many kills as those dragons or artied people. But they are still doing damage, hindering them, etc. If you gave experience to only the people who attacked the person who died, your concern would be eliminated.

I'm also not sure that 1v1 in raid/defense/skirmish scenarios should even be a consideration. That seems like the opposite of what we want.

I think it would make people feel better too and have more fun if they know they are getting experience for the work they do. You can say 'experience doesn't/shouldn't matter' all day, but in the end it does upset people when they lose it.

Nemutaur

Santar said:

I think the logged in route is a poor way to go about things. "Logged in" can mean a lot of things. It can mean that @Achilles forgot to log off in Aurora's temple for 12 hours. It can mean that Santar is on his ship with conjure ghost defense looping his timeout. It can mean that @Silas is in nirvana. It can mean that @Draqoom is logged in on dial-up. It can mean that @Sothantos is logged in during class. It can mean that @Daeir is logged in from his phone.

Basically, the fact that people are 'logged in' doesn't really note whether or not they're going to engage in combat.

You could have people that are in the middle of QQing when the raid starts, for example.

@Achilles needs to remember to log off then. @Santar needs to build in a counter and when it loops ghost 50 times while on a ship qq (reset by moving rooms). @Silas needs to stop afk'ing in Nirvana and log off. @Draqoom obviously needs better internet. @Sothantos should be learning then and @Daeir needs to get a phone that's about the same size as say a laptop.

This probably should be limited to the amount of citizens or soldiers who are on the prime continent at the time though.

Also I don't mind that citizens count towards starting a sanctioned raid. If the defenders aren't willing to defend then go ahead and slaughter the helpless citizens who are receiving substandard service from their army. If they get the whole city to evacuate start on the guards or on the denizens. Unless they have other way to incentivise defenders to defend this is how it will be done.

Optionally you could just give the Font a new power which gives the enemies tank +1 Level but forces it to be detonated within 2 minutes. That way you can just hit that big red emergency stop button, the raiders get to kill some rooms and then you can come back to your city and do whatever.

Kinilan

Nemutaur said:

.Optionally you could just give the Font a new power which gives the enemies tank +1 Level but forces it to be detonated within 2 minutes. That way you can just hit that big red emergency stop button, the raiders get to kill some rooms and then you can come back to your city and do whatever.

Could be used against the raiders though if they are setting up in an obvious adjacent/LoS position. force them to single room it and they get nothing special.

Nemutaur

Kinilan said:

Nemutaur said:

.Optionally you could just give the Font a new power which gives the enemies tank +1 Level but forces it to be detonated within 2 minutes. That way you can just hit that big red emergency stop button, the raiders get to kill some rooms and then you can come back to your city and do whatever.

Could be used against the raiders though if they are setting up in an obvious adjacent/LoS position. force them to single room it and they get nothing special.

Even better, that makes them have to consider that and go for a room that has more adjacent rooms at least and isn't a dead end.

Arianis

Melodie said:

The Scarlattans will be giggling for the next decade or so.

So are most of the Cyrenians, really.

I have been laughing since I got conscripted. Every time I type to Army, the Scarlattan in me just throws her hands up and cackles.

FOR THE POWER OF ART!

Editing for my pennies on the raid stuff:

1. Group XP gain- Please do this. Some classes support but get no kills. That sucks. Also, possible XP gain might encourage defenders not to just sit around or hide from combat.

2. Sanctioning- Soldier count makes sense. Yeah, you have some people who are just entirely AFK, but let's be honest- from a RP perspective, if you're a conscripted soldier, how the hell do you expect to just sit around AFK while your city is being attacked? If you're conscripted, you should be ready to fight whenever you're online. I AFK a LOT, but with these new changes, I've been QQing more when I would usually just AFK, and I'm trying to check back more often when I am logged in. I don't think it's ridiculous to expect others to do similarly. (And if my city DOES get attacked but I was afk and unable to defend, that's entirely my fault and I would expect to take responsibility for it)

Accipiter

Could give a power to attackers with a tank that would summon soldiers through monoliths. Doesn't entirely negate the problem, but you put it on an object so someone has to hold it, make it a one per city thing that drops from corpses, give it a length of time to summon and make it like radiance where a soldier entering the room disrupts it, it makes sitting in the city while someone is attacking untenable at least.