WAR- We all want something better

Achimrst

Tael said:

Jhui said:

I can't say I would care about lasting consequences @Tael

I think people just want something memorable and fun. If people need to write their own books documenting the war I don't see why they couldn't. I am sure you could even ask a divine to help with an events post and a symbol of victory like you've described.

if we get too detailed in a war system then we're not left with as much room to innovate.

basically, if the devs want to add something to help out the war system then that's fine but we shouldn't wait until 2020 to use the current one with the right amount of planning

Just to be clear - I'm agreeing with you. I think you're probably right and the current system probably can work. My only reservation about how it's been done in the past, even when leaders have cooperated OOCly to make things better, is the lack of "meaning" behind wars - the lack of incentive to win and the lack of consequences from the outcome. But I think that too could probably be handled the same way you're talking about handling things like keeping it fun for everyone - leaders could agree beforehand on outcomes that have to do with more than just victory posts or lump sums of gold. I hope in the future they might do that, especially since it provides a way for noncombatants to feel like a part of the conflict (and to get involved in the narrative that springs from those consequences) rather than just twiddling their thumbs until it's over and everything goes back to normal.

Cities already have territorial interests. And they have policies of barring citizens of enemy cities from entering. And they have buildings. And they have laws. And they (at least used to) have trade agreements. Things like that would be really interesting and would allow wars to alter the landscape for more than just combatants.

I tend to think if you HAVE to cooporate OOCly, then you are doing something wrong. War is supposed to be IC and feelings will get hurt if someone OOCly misunderstands something or plainly uses it to their advantage.

Silvarien

I'll admit I haven't read all of the posts, but I think "the war" should give some illustration for those who want a "war system." Here's a perspective from a total non-comm: I think overall allowing massive PK like in war is something that should be done cautiously, and maybe not at all.

When my character Silvarien was starting out, there was a massive, prolonged conflict of Shallam-Cyrene-Eleusis vs. Ashtan-Mhaldor. Started out fun enough, but it really went downhill. Tanris was at the time in his full glory, and for him and his friends it was their chance to shine. For people that weren't into PK, it just escalated into an all-out nightmare.

I remember days when Tanris and his crew were raiding literally 9AM - 3:30 AM. It's been so long that I don't remember how often it was like this, but except for people really into PK, this started to really wear them down. After a rl month, Tanris and his guys were doing very well, but the RPers and others who didn't enjoy PK just were turned off, more and more. Towards the end, it got to the point where even experienced PKers in Cyrene were qq'ing the moment a raid started.

The terms of truce were shitty and led to a massive meltdown of Cyrenian politics where Ariettie was -- basically by force -- taken down from Imperiate, causing a lot of lasting bitterness and strife. I don't think the woman likes me very much, but from my perspective she did what was necessary, because I'll be honest, if that war hadn't ended, I think a lot of people would've permanently quit.

War is good for superlative PKers such as Tanris who play Achaea to PK. For those who dabble in PK but aren't really into it, a limited conflict might be okay, if handled cautiously. For full-on RPers who dislike PK, a war will be unpleasant, and if taken too far will take the fun out of Achaea.

The war lasted one rl month, as I recall. One rl month, and there WAS a lot of fun but a lot of bad things too. While I appreciate the PKers' wish for a lot of PK, people such as Jinsun should consider the needs of people who HATE PK, for whom a lengthy war will be a fucking nightmare. This game is great, and I'd be the last to argue otherwise. But what you're dealing with here is something that might permanently lose Achaea players, and in my opinion that's not something we can afford because we simply don't have excess players to lose.

Just my two cents.

Grandue

Sarapis said:

@Blujixapug is correct about it running 24/7 at first. We kept dialing it back and then eventually just nuked it.

It, like virtually any idea that substantially rewards or punishes an entire city of people for winning or losing a war, is problematic because it creates a positive feedback loop, where winning makes you more likely to continue to win. Of course, a negative feedback loop (winning makes you less likely to continue winning) is not exactly compelling in a highly competitive environment like Achaea either.

I have literally never seen a compelling system that tries to imitate strategic 'war' work in a freeform MUD or MMO that's anything like Achaea. And while I appreciate you guys wracking your brains, every idea that's been presented is fatally flawed, as is every idea I've ever heard, whether from players or professional designers, for a war simulation system in this kind of game world.

There are many reasons you can't point to a single successful free-form, real-time worldy MUD/MMO with a war simulation anything like you some of you are fantasizing about (not that I blame you - building that kind of thing was one of my ambitions when starting Achaea. It's a compelling prospect right up until you start delving into the details.)

Could you perhaps point out where our ideas are fatally flawed? This would help us wrap our minds around ways to improve on them. It sounds almost as if you have given up on there ever being a good war system. 

Surely in a community with so many creative people like this we could put our heads together and try to flesh something out that would work. Instead of just shooting down every idea you've ever heard by saying it is flawed, help us understand in what way it is flawed so we can collectively try to improve on them. 

Jinsun

I think one solution that would ease things as far as PK that I've suggested time and time again is remove the experience loss and extremely long respawn time so that people have little to nothing to be upset about when they die.

Sarapis

@Grandue  http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/2812/warfare/p1

To be honest, no I don't think that you guys are going to solve a problem professional game designers with decades of experience have failed to solve, but I am absolutely happy to take a look at a design doc and be proven wrong. And of course, designing for every individual game is different, so the landscape on which that kind of system would exist here is different from other games. Perhaps there's something about Achaea that might make it work where it's failed elsewhere, who knows. I doubt it though. @Kresslack had taken on the challenge but I never heard from him again. An actual design doc, which includes numbers (no need for content like descriptions of things or messages though) and detail, as that's where the difficulties will make themselves apparent. 

When I talk about a war system, incidentally, I'm talking a war simulation that somehow combines player actions and NPC troops, and is fundamentally about city vs. city, not just players PKing each other to fight over a Landmarking-type system. There's plenty that could be done to let players opt into fighting over stuff, though because of the concern of positive feedback loops, ultimately what they fight over can't really make a huge difference (and this is one of the major problems with any city vs. city war system).

Reiloch

If the problem is with feedback loops, couldn't the rewards be things that could be considered significant in some way but would not be able to contribute to future war efforts? Consider, for instance, a 'perk ball' that only one city can own, and can be taken by defeating that city in a war. If a city owns the 'perk ball' it gets discounts on things like subdivision development, denizen shops (but not commodity shops), and room customizations- things that everyone would want to have, but wouldn't have any real impact on the wars themselves. These discounts would be calibrated to be significant enough that people would want to fight wars to own the 'perk ball', but not significant enough to make them not want to spend resources on the discounted things if they do not own it. The loser would not be penalized in any way, except perhaps a minor and temporary inconvenience (maybe some random rooms in the losing city get Tower-esque rubble for an Achaean day or two). This would also mean that cities that want to sit out (like Cyrene) would never have to go to war if they don't want to, because they would have to take aggressive action against somebody in order to get that 'perk ball' in the first place (and waging war on a city that doesn't own the 'perk ball' wouldn't net you anything win or lose).

Sarapis

Yep, random non-war associated perks can absolutely be part of such a system, but saying "the discounts would be calibrated to be significant enough that people would want to fight wars to own the 'perk ball'" is a problematic statement, because a big discount for one player is nigh-meaningless to another. 

You'd also find that fighting for rewards that by their nature can't be permitted to be particularly significant to the playerbase at large gets old fast.

Jinsun

Sarapis said:

Yep, random non-war associated perks can absolutely be part of such a system, but saying "the discounts would be calibrated to be significant enough that people would want to fight wars to own the 'perk ball'" is a problematic statement, because a big discount for one player is nigh-meaningless to another. 

You'd also find that fighting for rewards that by their nature can't be permitted to be particularly significant to the playerbase at large gets old fast.

@Sarapis  I said all this to say, I really want a way for ships and city navies to help shape the political landscape without such small benefit for winning and such and exhorbitant cost to the loser. Don't get me wrong, I love the extortion racket that the pirates have going, but it's really draining on players who just want to sail without losing a lot if they get sank. I know you guys have some stuff in the works but I think a placing and system for naval wars would be neat

Aerek

Sarapis said:

When I talk about a war system, incidentally, I'm talking a war simulation that somehow combines player actions and NPC troops, and is fundamentally about city vs. city, not just players PKing each other to fight over a Landmarking-type system. There's plenty that could be done to let players opt into fighting over stuff, though because of the concern of positive feedback loops, ultimately what they fight over can't really make a huge difference (and this is one of the major problems with any city vs. city war system).

You're right, Achaea's not really set up to be an RTS, and the costs/consequences of wars can't be too great, which is why I offered the Conclave Reckoning-style events that pitted individual cities against each other. We don't need all the bells and whistles, or complex NPC mechanics, (Though you JUST put in the Mining system, which almost feels like a good "war system" itself!) as long as whatever's happening gives the illusion of an epic struggle, and provides a fun challenge through which two cities pit themselves against each other.

Mishgul

Honestly I am just happy with the CTFs and Game of Eyes. 

Exelethril

I think if we can find a way to make losers happy for participating sans negative consequences while awarding victors accordingly for a certain (short) period of time, wars will be okay. Also, 4-7 days should be long enough without being grating.

Things we could do to encourage healthy conflict : Disable exp loss for dying to citizens of cities involved and diminish the exp gain / Make hiring stationary guards cheaper and make them stronger / Disable mechanics like worldburn / Disable destruction of barracks.

Calaurn

This idea is an extension of room destruction with some changes and following goals.

A period of war should be distinct from a period of peace for everyone.
War has to be time consuming in its preparation, execution and conclusion for single organisation. But the more the merrier!
War can be initiated/peace brokered by any participating organisation(s).
War can be ended/suspended anytime without causing too much waste of efforts.
War brings change.

A city has offices for each ministry. These are (I don't rightly know) actual rooms within the city boundary, and each has a definite function (not the room, the ministry). A raiding party usually, when a raid is sanctioned, uses tank to bring about destruction of room. Destroying any room would amount to a raid, but destroying these specific high profile targets (as an attack on city leadership) would be a declaration of war or vice-versa. All rooms have same time of reparations (again, I don't rightly know) but a destroyed office would halt the ministry function for two months (or other significant duration). However, city leaders can swap a less important office with destroyed one to cut down on loss of time. Example: Room for Office A is destroyed and will take six game days to complete repairs but two game months to resume work. Meanwhile after repairs, a less important office B can be reassigned to the room where office A was, and A is assigned to the room where B is. This achieves two things. 1) It shifts target for attacking party. 2) Time to resume work is cut down significantly (maybe another six game days for a total of 12 game days for A instead of two months to resume, and six for B to shift its business). Or perhaps there is a better way to mitigate such losses. Incidentally, 3) attacking party will need to think of a better plan if it wants this to turn into a successful war all by itself.

I really don't know how tanks work but... Forging a tank should take a good deal of time for a single organisation. Charging it for use should also take at least a game month. Tanks will have a decay duration (if they don't already) and can be stored ahead of time in preparations of war. Charged tanks can be stored for a very very very limited duration (two or game three months before use), in case there are plans to destroy more rooms in one attack. But the logistics could be overwhelming. Moreover, uncharged tanks can be purchased, transferred or seized from another city. The use of charged tanks can also be purchased, granted or forced. This means, the units (just combat or engineers or both) of tank owner will have to be committed to use charged tank in that particular event. No bystanders.


Destruction of offices have variety of effects:

Ministry of security: No control over guards, their placement, hiring and dismissal. Cannot designate totems to be owned by city or related organisation. Totems designated to individuals can still be planted, however. Existing totems still work as they should. In addition, any room without a guard is likely to turn into a riot scene. Be careful when calling for help.

Ministry of trade: Shops may close in worst scenarios. No discount may be available for citizens or allies. Goods are sold at market price. Worse yet, shop owners may lose control over whom the goods are sold (enemies can buy, too!). A sense of discontent among denizens around shops. Better have guards here or expect shops to close very soon.

Ministry of war: Gonna have hard time getting those tanks ready. Your only option would be outside help. No other side effect I can think of.

Ministry of culture: Greater likelihood of discontent among denizens everywhere in the city. Don't leave them alone! Bigger problems for bigger cities and for city leadership, as parts of city may declare themselves unaffiliated (any ideas how?). An unaffiliated part of city is open territory for any organisation, and can be turned around using an Embassy (a symbolic medium for spreading influence: evil, criminal, lawful, good, nature, chaos, political, religious, etc.). The more you drop by here, stick around, interact (sermons, debates, trades/shops, theatre, balls, etc.), the more your organisation's influence spreads in that area. So yes, the city from which areas separated can also raise an embassy and regain lost parts once more. Everyone else can claim these parts as allied territory and not conquered land until...  A city is not conquered unless city leadership yields (and to whom?), and a city can lose only so many rooms. So there is fighting chance. Only one Embassy per organisation in the whole of city can be raised, meaning if you have to claim a different larger (or smaller but strategic) unaffiliated area, you'll have to move your embassy to that location. An Embassy can be destroyed using tank in order to free that area of an organisation's influence. As a bonus, if destroying forces belong to the owner city then they might even get a huge boost to their influence and regain the area in one move.

Other ministries will have their own unique repercussions that contribute to success or failure of attacking/defending strategy and goals. Destruction of ministry of treasury and funds, for example, could mean you cannot pay to settle terms out of your coffers, leaving you to consider other options to end or postpone hostilities (prematurely?) or to gain outside help. So on and so forth. A war like this will require more than just combatants. It will take every kind of player participation and will definitely have lasting effects on just about everyone.


PS: I have used the term organisation instead of city. It is possible that a clan (even a House) can declare war on the city where it resides. An example would be the old Infernals guild that took to fighting with Ashtan. Lost that one, but hey! Another example would be for Rogues to establish allied territory using Embassy.

P.PS: How will this affect shrine wars and other activities external to a city or org?

Note on Embassy: It could be a special exit added to a room. Something like a newsroom, people stationed in embassy are safe from PK and it is used only for roleplay. Destroying the room where this special exit is linked also destroys the Embassy, and probably exposes the people inside. Probably.

Mathonwy

I think @Vansittart has the right of it, tbh. The favorable ratio of admin participation to playerbase is probably the single greatest asset Achaea has because it builds in a sort of elasticity to situations like war. You don't need to have a mechanics switch you can flip in any and every case because the admin can craft certain scenarios depending on how the war is/has been going that will probably be more engaging anyway.

Also, Achaea's playerbase demonstrates/has demonstrated that people will place a high premium on intangibles and cosmetic content, enough so that they routinely pay real money for them. Maybe not everyone does, and maybe not everyone does to the same degree, but I think it's pretty fair to say those factors hold a certain appeal to everyone, and that should be where the lion's share of the benefits fall. It creates neither a positive feedback loop nor a negative one (though you could argue that war itself kind of looks like a negative feedback loop, as historically gets harder and harder to 'win' the more entrenched the enemy is; whether that should be the case in Achaea though is up for debate).

But yeah, you don't really need incentives to win. It's always gonna be its own reward.

Exelethril

If exp loss/gain were disabled but objectives requiring teamwork over 4-7 days were set in place, the killing spree and carnage would be fun to participate in for everyone.

Xith

The reason war systems in Achaea can't have any long-term damage by mechanical means is that war and economy are always going to be tied together, and like it or not, many players can buy their own economy while others can't.

You can still have roleplay consequences, if properly engineered  by the Garden, so that's really where your war system is, especially for wars to be interesting and philosophical and not just number-crunching between combat nerds.

It'd be really tough for the admins to create a roleplay outcome that portrays the efforts made by players during the war, accounting for the original ideas and unpredictability inherent in war-winning. You'd have to measure that effort mechanically for it to be "fair". Personally, I've never paid enough attention to the shrine/order/essence stuff to know how that works, but I'd like to think that amassing the most essence would give a certain deity the upper hand in a god vs. god conflict.

The city equivalent of an essence resource would be gold, which can be bought. So if a political conflict were to be measured on both sides by the work output and 'play time' of one side to determine the victor and long-lasting consequences, it might be fair. 

It's either that or just administrative storytelling, like Mhaldor's insidious pact that sank the unwitting city of Shallam, full of players who had no say in the matter.

Blujixapug

Xith said:

roleplay consequences

This whole idea is interesting. Can you think of any ways players can do this themselves without needing any admin hand-holding right now?

News posts could work. News posts are hard to do well though - vulnerable to egos, pride, and poor writing.

City newspapers have the potential for relevant articles. 'Bakeries rationing cupcakes as pirates hamper sugarcane imports.' 'Old Quarter still struggling to rebuild after prolonged Mhaldorian raids; library demands funds to rebuild roof, rebuffed by Treasury as "of secondary importance" to war effort.' 'Sixth sanitation worker missing. What did Ashtan leave behind in our sewers? More on page 3.'

CT/HT/personal conversations can work, but tend to be coopted by the need to maintain morale. Plus comments from the humourless point-missing peanut gallery, "This museum was destroyed! Many priceless historical relics must have been destroyed by the Cyrenian scum-dogs. Why are they trying to destroy our cultural heritage?" "It's fine, we're repairing, read HELP CITY DESTRUCTION."

Azhrarn

The whole problem with a war system is a bit fundamental.. wars were and are fought to win, permanently if possible. replicate that and it should be possible to obliterate your enemy. in other words you should be able to wipe an enemy city completely off the map, never to rise again or merge the conquered city into your own. we cant do that as it would require a completely different setup of the game. we have city-states not kingdoms.

so that would turn things into a sort of raid again.. and honestly what do other cities really have that are worth the investment to steal? (comm gathering is shifting to player driven so that makes it harder to steal comms from other cities)

you could think up a system that its 2 or multiple armies against eachother fighting over a set price during a set period of time.. say a bounty of comms, but that would turn it more into a minigame.
That still leaves the problem sarapis mentioned there must be a reason to keep fighting the battles even if you loose.

Just a thought, armies are build (or equiped at least) by citizens completing quests that reward you xp. That would keep city armies keep getting replenished by questing people, even those that are too weak to actually fight or unwilling to fight pvp/war.. Sit out a few of these battles and you would grow your army, while partisipants suffer attrition (even a winner would loose some)

Aerek

Which is why war just needs to be a period of "competitive conflict" instead of "all out conflict". It needs to war, game-ified, where the rules are set, the objective clear, and the outcome largely arbitrary. (Mechanically speaking, anyway. Flavour and RP should reflect wins/losses)

My suggestion was Conclave-style competitions between cities. But anything that gives a sort of war-flavoured olympic event would fill the niche that would let two cities "go to war" to see who was bigger or badder, without the goal being griefing each other into the ground.

Rangor

Reckoning could have been a war. Those who participated mostly had fun. Everyone who participated gained a shitload of gold and xp. Pvp wad only a portion of the event. Winner gained rp and bragging privs, but No positive loop stuff.

Alaskar

I'm still waiting on an Achaean equivalent of the Geneva and Hague conventions. We can have trials for intentional targeting of non-comms and such, or using questionable tactics. The convention can use their influence to determine what constitutes a loss-criteria for a city, etc.

Arditi

Alaskar said:

I'm still waiting on an Achaean equivalent of the Geneva and Hague conventions. We can have trials for intentional targeting of non-comms and such, or using questionable tactics. The convention can use their influence to determine what constitutes a loss-criteria for a city, etc.

Only if it's a unanimous decision to call something questionable, otherwise it's going to be each aligned city getting censured for having something the others don't.

Sarapis

Alaskar said:

I'm still waiting on an Achaean equivalent of the Geneva and Hague conventions. We can have trials for intentional targeting of non-comms and such, or using questionable tactics. The convention can use their influence to determine what constitutes a loss-criteria for a city, etc.

If it's like those, then which cities get to be America and its allies and get to ignore the conventions at their convenience?

Shirszae

Sarapis said:

Alaskar said:

I'm still waiting on an Achaean equivalent of the Geneva and Hague conventions. We can have trials for intentional targeting of non-comms and such, or using questionable tactics. The convention can use their influence to determine what constitutes a loss-criteria for a city, etc.

If it's like those, then which cities get to be America and its allies and get to ignore the conventions at their convenience?

Probably Ashtan 

Azhrarn

as if the cities would ever manage to agree on anything? besides many players opperate on their own and the ones most likely to grief are generally those that dont care for conventions either. we might wanna think up a system that could actually work as a war system before we start to make things complicated with matters that dont even work in teh real world.

basicly we already have geneva conventions.. the rules laid down by the administration.