The War: Ideas not rants.

Morthif

Watching the war play out from my frustratingly unique PoV I have a few ideas that might make the next one more fun.

1.) Develop a gathering quest only available to sub level 50 players on each side to build up some kind of resource. Side with most resources at the end gets X amount of points

2.) Each city gets 3 locations of their choosing (i.e. Eastern Reaches, Jaru, Pash vs Mhaldor Island, Blackrock Caves, Harae) to hold sovereignty over. Enemy city gains 2 points for taking over sovereignty. 5 points for taking sovereignty of enemy city.

3.) Make gem of cloaking not work for soldiers during active war.

4.) This needs the most work/discussion. If enemy refuses to engage with X amount of soldiers logged in allow attackers to use a channeled ability (like 1-2 min channel time) to build up a sanction. 

5.) Limit 1 tank per sanction during War/always.

Thoughts/other ideas?

Kiet

Problem with 4) is people will just qq or not log on if they have anything at all that might interfere. Pretending most of Achaea doesn't log on while multitasking is pointless.

#2 is nice, but we'd have to decide how long they have to 'hold' sovereignty to get points. If it's just a matter of taking it, it's gonna be 9 am defiles back and forth.

Ahmet

Morthif said:

5.) Limit 1 tank per sanction during War/always.

Maybe just have tank disarm end sanction immediately, then the raiding force can decide if they want to continue and try for another, or just bail.

Morthif

#2 would need to have order herald shout on CT during war time to make it more fair but with crusades needed for points you have to limit the amount of judgement use or you can't activate your crusade and lose points by default.

Nazihk

Honestly, at this point I'd sort of like to just scrub this entire war. We're like 4-5 days into a war that's supposed to last 24 days, and nobody is liking it anymore because the end result of these war terms is that they decrease the amount of enjoyable conflict in the game.

Instead of trying a defense because "fuck it, the worst that happens is they tank us once", we're in a position where the smart play is to abandon the city. And on the other side of that it's no longer a matter of "So what if we get wiped, all that happens is that we're down a tank", disarms giving points mean that nobody is willing to risk an uncertain tank. Instead of lots of people getting engaged and active in duels, we're in a position where very few people are willing to do that due to the penalties. I feel like we'd honestly be having more fun without  the war because we'd be more willing to raid and defend and actually engage the enemy.

I would be happy calling this war a failed experiment, letting Mhaldor take some ceremonial executions for their current lead, and then going back to the drawing board armed with our experiences from this war. 

Atalkez

Well I think the entire outlook changes if we had limited it to 1 tank a raid. Mhaldor got a huge lead on day 1, which changes the perception for everyone on both sides on how to approach the war.

Torinn

1) Definitely agreed.  There has to be something for sub-50 players to do.  Or hell, even sub-70.
2) We were seriously considering doing something like this, but making it so off-hours shrine shenanigans isn't the norm is difficult to enforce.  Not to mention defiling and re-raising would be really annoying with the amount of extra hunting it would take.
3) Definitely agreed.
4) Not sure about this one.  What about a weapon that could be used from outside the city, within maybe 2 rooms of defendable, that could target individual rooms within the enemy AREA?  This weapon would take a long time to prepare and require oh.. 5 people to man.  It has an ability that would scatter guards and disable totem in the room targeted allowing, if there are enemies turtling up when they should be firing, the attackers to get a sanction.  Yes, they may QQ anyways but it'd be a good way to get some conflict going as the weapon would be advertised.
5) Definitely agreed.

Nazihk

Atalkez said:

Well I think the entire outlook changes if we had limited it to 1 tank a raid. Mhaldor got a huge lead on day 1, which changes the perception for everyone on both sides on how to approach the war.

The big problem is that once they got that big initial lead they had no reason whatsoever to engage with us in other fights.

Zelisia

I don't think abandoning the war after 4 days is going to help create something better...

Zelisia

To add something constructive, what if the leaders set up party duels that are best of three and required different players for each round?

Xaden

Let's at least get to a week before we write everything off, eh?

Trust in the Farrah's that be.

Morthif

there's 2 or 3 gods involved.. we can't really write anything off. I'm just saying for future reference.

Regi

I believe everyone has realized it by this point, but outside looking in, the only bragging rights that are going to come out of this for the victor is "We were able to act more anti-competitive, consistently, for a full month".

ICly Regi has lost respect for both factions over the course of this, which is a shame because he was excited by the prospect of these two natural enemies finally taking the gloves off, so to speak. Both very powerful and deep-rostered right now. A pity there seem to have been almost zero good clean battles (so far, maybe things will pick up!).

OOCly, I do understand trying to game the ruleset and do what you can to win, but it looks completely, completely unfun. Once again, people are prioritizing "winning" over playing the game we all love within this community of friends, just like when people were lying to eachother about OOC game mechanics in the UW war. Cough.

Definitely any future things of this nature if Hashan gets involved in, I'll be keeping things solely to the most competitive rules possible, even if that means dispensing with current IG systems. Much rather have series of party spars or duels with every soldier having a set of guaranteed matchup, or at least pre-scheduled crusades where massive number advantages don't just pop up "unexpectedly". 

The most OP tactic in this one seems to be a tough call between "tacitcal retreat", and "skype/discord". Really don't know how to fix that without enforcing even teams.

Sobriquet

I like the sound of number 1 and thought about suggesting something similar myself. There could do with something non combat related to help the cause during a war. 

Kiet

Making it 12 days now would be nice tho. 24 days of this is gonna burn out a lot of the non-coms

Krypton

The enslave 2000 Targossians term seems a nasty, nasty addition. That certainly would have given me a "win at any cost" mentality.

Even it being all fake people, it still makes for an emotionally gripping loss.

Magenta

Kiet said:

Making it 12 days now would be nice tho. 24 days of this is gonna burn out a lot of the non-coms

This, very much. On the other hand, it gives the people that don't play 24/7 a chance to participate, which is probably pretty cool, too - but I also think 12 days would've been enough for me, personally.

Kiet

If you can't participate even once over a period of 12 days, not sure adding 12 more will change that a lot.

Medi

24 days of this is going to burn people out: Can we agree OOCly on some days of peace? (No raiding on the 4th of july when all the staters are off getting wasted?)

It was my understanding that the "war terms" (Or as @Saibel put it, the carebear war XD) were to promote fun and restrict grief... I think we've failed at making nice things for ourselves again!

Tesha

I've been having a lot of fun with for-fun duels, and skirmishes outside of the respective cities. Maybe we can both defile a bit more to have fights without having to worry about points or being punished later etc.

Kiet

I doubt what most people want is more fighting though. We're already doing like 4 hours of fighting a day, every day.

Torinn

@Krypton agreed on that front.

Alrena

Tesha said:

I've been having a lot of fun with for-fun duels, and skirmishes outside of the respective cities. Maybe we can both defile a bit more to have fights without having to worry about points or being punished later etc.

While that's normally true, there's been so much fighting already with one side or the other trying to get a sanction that people tend to not want more fighting. I will add my vote with reducing this war to 12 days, now that Targ caught up to points.

I do think it was a good idea to put down terms and clear win/loss terms. But like I said in the other thread, if you want people to go for it, then you need to make both winning and losing seem equally appealing, as much as that is possible. Consequences should be light, encouraging people to take risks and try stupid things that become the great stories we talk about years later. I do think it's awesome the Gods are getting involved, absolutely. Just a shame both sides are in a mindset to win at all costs now. For some people you probably can't even change that.

I think sovereignty might be a good idea in some cases, but it seems hard to judge and relies on how many order members you have. If one side has few order members, it's a big disadvantage compared to a large order (or two orders). That said, planned battles seem a good compromise, like how they are planned now. Just a shame they're both at 3am my time, so no go for me.

Duels, comparatively speaking to the rest, should be worth less points, so everyone can give it a go and not feel bad if they lose. 

Khel

I stand by my flag plant instead of using sanction/tank. A unique war thing that requires both cities to be hostile, writes a log to both cities if it works or fails and only can be done every x hours. A hard cd on an attacker started event that doesn't punish defenders for trying (tank blows faster if defense wipes several times). Successful defense recharges your flag to full so you can hit back. Now aggressive side has to balance risk/reward, you do it 2x a day when it's safe maybe you get beaten in points by the side spamming it and getting lucky.

Or make it work in zones instead, not cities, because I hate guards. And also shrines and font.

Reyson

Here are some suggestions! 

1) limit duels to a certain amount per day, so that even if a team loses them all, they won't be reticent to try again the next day. 

2) limit the amount of times a person can duel for points, or institute a cooldown. Keep 1v1 and 2v2+ lists separate so people have a chance to do both at some point. 

3) have MoW's submit the list of duelists at the start, so both sides can know what they're potentially up against. With a limit on duels per person, this makes duel selection important! 

4) allow for incentives; team with the widest variety of duelist wins, team with the most undefeated duelists, etc. get a small point reward at the end. 

5) limit tanks to one per sanction, and the amount of sanctions per day. That way, people might not be so worried to engage, and general fighting time is brought down, instead of people fishing for sanctions all throughout the day.

6) in either team's favor, changing the rules of a game mid-game is crazy. Once started, a midway through rule change will always look like sore losing, and that's pretty demoralizing, tbh.

Taryius

Putting a limit on sanctions or duels just seems like a bad idea, it turns the game into more trying to reach these requirements every day rather than trying to do your best, unless the limit is something crazy in which there isn't a point for the limit anymore. 

The ways its set has pros and cons, having disarms be worth equal to tanks means each side has to play carefully with their tanks. Con of this, no one is going to raid and tank if there is chance the tank will be disarmed. Only one tank got disarmed and that is because Targossas didn't realize we moved guards for it.

Maybe have tanks be worth 4 points, disarms worth 2? Then it isn't just -whoever has more tank attempts- wins, but people won't be so afraid that they will bone their team because their tank got disarmed.. Who knows, let this thing play out and we'll assess it after. It's hard to get a full picture when its only just started.

Xaden

7.) Each city is now limited to one tank detonation per serenade. Detonation and disarms are now only worth one point instead of three. Theis is not a retroactive change.

Now Nobody is gonna fucking duel. Well done.

Kiet

Idk that seems like a good change to me? Just have duels give fractions of points or something or limit them

Also no one was dueling anyway.

Taryius

Holy shit I think that is an awful change, especially when the war isn't at even scores right now... This is going to be a war of who has the better duelists not about the city has the best coordination, group combat, leadership and all that...

Now its so much riskier for a side to raid, with unlimited disarms but a limit on detonations... This feels like such a snap decision, its one thing to limit the tank but to make a whole raid no better than winning a single duel?

Targossas could do nothing but deny every duel, and focus on winning the Nishnatoba and Navel battles, depending on if people will make an effort to make sure they are able to be in-game for those times, which people shouldn't have to.. Targossas has a bigger population than Mhaldor does at almost every hour of the day.. But who knows... Seems like raiding and dueling just became so much riskier and in a war where neither side was making risky moves, and such may be obsolete..

Torinn

It seems to me that the reliance on duels will be bigger.  I like it, I have yet to be asked to duel.  I like that Nish and Naval battles are worth more than tanks.  That's where your tactics and coordination are, even battles there.

Skye

The complaint about people cherry picking their duels and there 'only being two fighters willing to engage' makes me think that there should be a system in place for it.

For example, at an agreed upon location there is a board with a roster of duelists. During negotiations the two factions can agree upon the maximum number of duelists on the board. For example, they agree that they will put up to 4 challengers from each side. (4 challengers per faction is probably the minimum, but they will also need to agree upon a realistic maximum number, like 5 or 6 to prevent a large population faction like Eleusis from just zerg-rushing the board to impose penalties)

Board listing
In order to be listed on the board, the challenger can just go to the board and TOUCH BOARD. They will remain listed so long as they are online or they can choose to remove their name if they are busy (TURN BOARD). Their name will be removed if they QQ, journal, go offplane etc, or are killed in a duel. 

Duels
Official war duels are fought by going to the board, getting listed, and opting to CHALLENGE <whoever is listed>. This will send a world message like the war horn, which the other party may accept and then be transported to Delos for their duel to the death. If you are challenged, you are given 1 minutes grace to answer and leeway to refuse once (maybe you need to go to the bathroom or whatever). However if the second challenge goes unanswered, the challenging faction will gain a point by default. 

To prevent the same one uber tier PKer from repeatedly murdering people for points, one player may only engage in up to 3 war duels per Achaean month. There is no limit to joining the list and waiting to be challenged, or dying in a duel. if you feel like being cannon fodder all day long, that's your own prerogative.

Penalties
It is not necessary for each party to fill the board to maximum at all hours, however there is a penalty for letting your side of the board stay empty or understaffed. 

1) For every 4 hours that your side of the board remains empty, the enemy faction gains 3 points.
2) For every 8 hours that your faction duelists are outnumbered, the enemy faction gains 2 points. 
The penalty for this is larger than individual losses to incentivise players to YOLO and just join up and accept duels regardless of whether they're guaranteed to win. These penalties do not stack. 

There is no penalty for both factions to sit around on their butts so long as the board is appropriately filled.