City destruction - Bombs

Ernam

It's been a few months now with the new city destruction system, and I think for the most part, it's pretty awesome.  However, I've noticed a lot of people commenting on certain aspects of it being a little... off, so I thought I'd open up a discussion on some things we might change, either with mechanical requirements or (god forbid) some in-game attitude shifts.

1 

Tank placement.  It seems entirely too easy to place tanks on/near guards.  If nothing else, I would submit that placing tanks should be a 3-4 second channel, or at the very least incur a 4-5 second balance loss*.  This would make the somewhat silly and probably unintended phase/throw eye/place tank/duanathar method more difficult/impossible, or would at least make it cost a death to perform.

* I firmly believe the balance loss option is a bad choice, because it allows for very easy place/summon (empress, deliver, etc), particularly since mushroom sigils don't require balance (for some reason).


2 

Tank range of effect.  A lot of people, myself included, find it somewhat irrational and annoying that a tank can be place anywhere in a city, and charged by deaths anywhere else.  This "feature" causes several problems.  

• Firstly, it makes determining if tanks have been placed incredibly difficult, and generally results in half a dozen people running around like headless chickens trying to find bombs in every remote corner of the city, over and over, for hours.  
• Secondly, combined with the Tank placement design, this allows for placing tanks on locations that raiders would otherwise have absolutely no chance of successfully destroying.  (example: placing tanks at rally point/gates/etc)

I suggest that tanks have a 5-10 room area of effect, such that their growth in any way (presence of raiders, kills, etc) only occurs if the raiders/defenders are near the area itself.   Not only would this mean that raiders would actually have to raid near the area they're actually trying to destroy, but it would also make locating potential bombs much more sensible, since tanks would generally only be located within 5-10 rooms of the raid group itself.


3 

More dismantlers.  Over and over again, I've seen raiders (you know who you are) place tanks in utterly undefendable positions, simply because they knew that nobody in the defending city has the ability to dismantle it.  I've frequently seen a CWHO of 15-20, sometimes even close to 30, where nobody can dismantle tanks.  Thus, if someone drops a tank on us right at rally point... even if they have absolutely no chance of defending the location, we are totally incapable of dismantling it, and very well might lose the room if citizens 20 rooms away end up dying to raiders.

Solution(s):  There are several ways this could be addressed.  

• Firstly, army experience is, in my personal opinion, insanely slow.  I play a lot and defend/participate in every raid I can possibly get involved in, and I've never made army rank 2.  In fact, almost everyone capable of doing anything involving army ranks (dismantling, etc) was appointed the position when the city destruction system was formed.  Many of these people are no longer active.   Increase the experience generation rate, and/or create more ways to earn army experience (killing soldiers outside of raids, perhaps?)
• Allow direct promotions by more city leaders (HELP ARMY states that MoW can promote, but are there limitations on this, and if so, this issue can be a player-solved issue by simply promoting more people, particularly people who play during off-peak hours)

4 

Experience loss.  Why do marks lose experience during sanctioned raids, when nobody else does?  Is there a reason for this, and if so, I'd sincerely like to know what it is.


5 

Gate raids.  This is more of an idea than an issue, but it seems like a good place to bring it up!  I don't think it'd be a good idea to count kills in/near defendable towards sanctioning, but it would be logical to count the immediate area surrounding defendable territory for building tank/bomb levels.  Perhaps rooms within 5 steps from city property could count towards tanks?


Discuss!

Nemutaur

1) Meh maybe, but I think that's fine as is.

2) This one I might agree with, it's not reasonable for us to be able to tank the harbour and then sit at isles charging it up. But I don't know how to solve it, it should be possible to blow up the gates while sitting at defendable or anywhere along that road while sitting at defendable. It's up to you to defend it, not us not to attack.

3) How about conscripting more people and using ARMY PROMOTE?

4) Been that way for ages, might be an oversight from the old raiding system. Issue or bug it I guess.

5) Not sure on that since it would discourage rushing us at defendable which is honestly the best approach to getting rid of us, your deaths out there mean no tank charging.

Ernam

The dropping thing wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't for the range of charging.  It's the combination of (1) and (2) that makes it really, really, dumb, in my opinion.

Makarios

There is no limitation on army promote. The system is intentionally stacked against cities who refuse to promote their citizens.

Addama

I think I've asked like five times over the last week to be let into the Targ Army.

We need to at least promote a few dudes who can induct.

Jacen

Yeah, I mean we're Hashan, and we've got 13 people at AR4+. Just gotta have those abilities.

Antidas

1.) Agree
2.) Agree, but I brought it up ages ago and was ignored by admins. It wouldn't be difficult to fix partially by saying that the attacker has to be within a certain distance from the tank when they get the kill to charge the tank. I can't think of any reasonable solution for simply letting the tank build up over time though
3.) As previously stated, thats for us to fix, not the system
4.) I see no issues with marks losing xp, although I guess I wouldn't complain if it was changed
5.) No real issues with how the system currently works here, although I can understand the argument

Caladbolg

1. Agree, with the channel part, being able to drop bombs and die or get out is kinda silly, I've seen this happen and just thought man, that's kinda lame.
2. Also agreed, maybe a little bigger, it's pretty silly trying to search the entire city for a tank that a veiled serpent has dropped when we have no one that can find them. only for it to explode after we've all been searching for it for god knows how long.
3.Army experience is way to slow. WAY WAY WAY to slow, shouldn't exist or should be increased imo. but the higher your army ranks the more points it gives to a tank, when you have a bunch of assholes who charge into the group and die constantly, or in our case Have to attack six people with 12-15 and lose/lose half our group those on our side that died add up quickly.
4.I do not believe non marks gain experience in raids for getting a kill, Marks get experience for killing and lose it for dying. iirc
5.I think kills at defendable already work for sanctioning? I've sanctioned off defendable before but could have been a bug. (was along time ago too) and yeah if they don't count for sanction then imo they shouldn't count for a bomb, since technically defendable is not the city. if you want that tank/sanction should have to go through guards a rush and the font.

Atalkez

Once sanction is up you gain no xp. Raiders still lose xp.

Ernam

Where should this get brought up, ideally?  ACC, classleads, here?