There should be diminishing returns or tweak to the scaling. A tank shouldn’t charge to a full level one after a single engagement, imo, which happens a lot when lots of higher ranks are around. I’m not sure I even like the scaling.
Also, charge reduction on killing enemies should scale with army rank if we decide to keep the scaling.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
I don't mind something charging to full off one engagement if it's a drawn out. The only real issue here is that defenders need to win decisively or they might as well not win at all, because tanks keep charging (and sanctions keep getting gained) no matter what.
Otoh, like someone said, if you add in 'counter-scaling' you risk drawing out raids even more.
I actually think this is a major issue, honestly. Raiders being able to die repeatedly at no cost while defender deaths sometimes have an extreme cost adds a certain lopsidedness against the defense that's problematic particularly in already large raids.
To me, the issue is just tank charge scaling on army rank and raider deaths not reducing charge. The bigger the fight is, the more it benefits the raiders because more deaths = faster tank with no similar bonus to defenders. I think there needs to be something to eliminate that advantage, whether it's raider deaths reducing charge or just a max amount of charge you can build in X amount of time.
This is a hard call for me. I agree with the fact that raiders are significantly favored over defenders when it comes to the consequences of burning through several lives in raid situations, but I don't think your solutions work that well. This is because of two reasons.
First, the number of lives each defender chooses to use in a raid situation is entirely at their discretion, so they should be able to evaluate how many lives they are willing to feed the enemy and act accordingly - but they do not. Even the higher ranking army members are likely, especially likely, to do this, because they are generally experienced combatants who are used to regularly retouching starbursts and using their gem. These kinds of situations call for changing the mindset that more lives are strategically better - and not many defenders realize that, or act appropriately. Of course, this still favors the raiders, as they have no penalty for just massing backup lives, and that is perhaps an issue that should be addressed, as you mentioned. This still doesn't change the fact that defenders can be far more intelligent about how they intend to use their lives, and maybe, you know, even relax starburst and not feed extra kills when they get braziered solo into the entire enemy raid group.
Two, I'm not sure if I'd like to have raider deaths reduce charge, because this further reduces the feasibility of getting a level three tank - which is already so, so dependent on the defenders' decision to engage, which they almost certainly will not do once a level two tank is reached. If anything, I worry about the ability to get level two tanks if raider deaths reduces charge - this can create a pattern where level two and three tanks are not feasible in evenly matched raid situations, and can only be achievable by stomping the defending city several times in a row. That is not good. You want the fights for higher level tanks to be bloody but remain somewhat even, so the defenders believe they have a reasonable chance of success at re-engaging.
I am fine with a cost being associated with raider deaths. I would not like it to be in a way that makes higher level tanks more difficult to achieve, however - getting to these thresholds are already far too dependent on the choices of the defenders for my liking. I would like to see a level 3 tank in Achaea at least once before I die, plz.
Punishing defenders for having 10 lives is fine, yeah. I'd say the issue is more that defenders have to absolutely wipe the enemy team or it's pointless, while attackers can just whittle away slowly.
Punishing defenders for having 10 lives is fine, yeah.
You've lot said this as if the raiders aren't also sitting on 10 lives with 0 downside. I think it's fine if it gets balanced, but it's not fine currently, imo.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
I'm more saying that the specific mechanic of punishing extra lives is fine. It's better if both sides have some kind of punishment for it, though, yes.
My issue is a defender can't strategically not use as many lives if the other side is all bursting and the defenders need those lives to win. It makes guards their only good option if a raid becomes something like 15v15 because they're almost certainly going to ultimately "lose" no matter what if they don't guard, simply because of the disparity. If both sides suffer massive deaths, the raiders win.
And I don't think a level two tank should be charged after a single engagement. A lvl 2 tank 18 min after sanction is gained just seems off to me.
I wouldn't mind if the deaths were "stored" and caused the tank to continue charging overtime rather than all at once (so if you wipe the defenders enough for a lvl 2, you'll get that lvl 2 eventually still if they stop defending), so there's just more time for defenders to try and disarm. I just think it sucks to have everyone drop what they're doing to defend just to go make one attempt and have the raiders leave with a lvl 2. Going for a lvl 2 should require a bit more.
Last night I saw Targossas had 3 people on so I figured clearly I should sit in their city and taunt @Antonius My taunting lead to him bringing @Xaden and chasing me out! (2v1! Haxor!) So I promptly grabbed @Austere and we went back! Much to our chagrin they came at us with a third! Not just any third but @Braver The nerve of them! My superior escrow shriveled in this mans presence. Never the less I slew @Antonius but @Austere fell at my feet when they targeted him! I retreated and we regrouped. We decided we'd had enough of this childishness! We grabbed @Truax and @Jadys and with our vastly superior numbers (4v3) we charged the Targossian Harbour! @Antonius fell! @Braver fell! I fell (At least 3 times because I utilized starburst after starburst!) @Truax fell! @Austere fell! @Xaden fell! My eyes were blinded by the starbursts flaring left and right around me. Finally we'd done it, we achieved the sanction! Targossas had 4 people total online and one was 18! Ashtan had at least 7 available so we did what any reasonable attacking group would do when they have an easy sanction with no chance of defense...
We told them great fight, withdrew, and all laughed together on an OOC clan while we talked about how fun it was and what each of us could have done better on all sides. Thats how this works right??
Your dreams are very vivid, or you are terrible at playing this game. How you gonna win if you don't take advantage of an easy tank/sanction! They still had guards and font available to stop it.
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but that isn't what happened last night, and I'm assuming that is what sparked you to write that.
I deliverance bombed you guys on guards (lol to that) to almost get a sanction, then we sanctioned and placed tank right away, then picked off a bunch more of you, killed your whole group with all of you bursting twice and some of you using flasks. The tank was about 60-65% to level 2 then. After that, you guys kept reincarnating/rezzing each other and rushing in small groups that we killed, or individually.
If you had regrouped instead of trying the small group stuff, you probably could have routed us and disarmed.
I wouldn't mind if the deaths were "stored" and caused the tank to continue charging overtime rather than all at once (so if you wipe the defenders enough for a lvl 2, you'll get that lvl 2 eventually still if they stop defending), so there's just more time for defenders to try and disarm. I just think it sucks to have everyone drop what they're doing to defend just to go make one attempt and have the raiders leave with a lvl 2. Going for a lvl 2 should require a bit more.
Tanks gain energy over time, defender deaths add to the total energy the tank can hold, raider deaths remove from that total?
Having raider deaths deplete tank charges is a very very bad idea. It will draw out raids for SO LONG, and cause an even griefer mentality of entrenchment so that raiders ensure they have minimal losses. Let's not get silly with ideas
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but that isn't what happened last night, and I'm assuming that is what sparked you to write that.
I deliverance bombed you guys on guards (lol to that) to almost get a sanction, then we sanctioned and placed tank right away, then picked off a bunch more of you, killed your whole group with all of you bursting twice and some of you using flasks. The tank was about 60-65% to level 2 then. After that, you guys kept reincarnating/rezzing each other and rushing in small groups that we killed, or individually.
If you had regrouped instead of trying the small group stuff, you probably could have routed us and disarmed.
You never fully wiped our group, as we ended up killing most of you at the end. From my perspective of when I got there, there was a long drawn fight with neither side really gaining much ground. We moved adjacent, didn’t work lost some people, then we moved to another adjacent and I started using Litany. We began winning at that point.
Both teams were alive, tank just got to full before we could take room.
I did think about something for this scenario specifically. Right now you can’t detonate or disarm a tank if enemy soldier is in the room. At l2, I think it would be worth considering if they are adjacent the same applies. At that point the tank is pressuring those rooms as well as the primary room.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Having raider deaths deplete tank charges is a very very bad idea. It will draw out raids for SO LONG, and cause an even griefer mentality of entrenchment so that raiders ensure they have minimal losses. Let's not get silly with ideas
Well, only if the raiders refuse to admit defeat which was kinda what started the conversation in the first place. Like having to win by 2 in volleyball.
What if tanks stopped gaining charge passively, but instead would automatically detonate after a certain length of time with whatever their current charge is at that moment, rounding up to level 1? There would still be the option to manually detonate if you had sufficient charge, of course. This would resolve the problem of indefinite length raids if defenders were given a way to reduce charge by killing raiders.
Having raider deaths deplete tank charges is a very very bad idea. It will draw out raids for SO LONG, and cause an even griefer mentality of entrenchment so that raiders ensure they have minimal losses. Let's not get silly with ideas
I actually agree here. If you make offense more difficult, you're inviting more imbalanced raiding post sanction. I definitely don't have three hours to dedicate to a tank a lot of nights, so I'd be far less likely to decline additional support if I knew potentially losing a few fighters could drastically set us back time wise.
Im all for disarm giving more to defenders, though. World messages, more experience, automatic capture on disarm, memento credit for everyone in room, ect. I think there's a lot that could be done incentively that doesn't just completely end a fight.
Despite having to disarm two Mhaldorian tanks last night, I'm very against disarm ending sanction or locking out raiders. Disarm reducing sanction timer by x minutes isn't a bad idea, but you're still putting more emphasis on raiders ability to hold a room, encouraging lopsided entrenchment. Killing every defender once doesn't guarantee a tank. Killing every offender once shouldn't guarantee anything either.
I'm just cobbling together a bunch of ideas I've been reading in this thread for you guys to eviscerate with your far greater experience:
You could make defender deaths contribute 1x the base amount towards charge Raider deaths reduce the charge by .25x (Edited in): Everyone should contribute towards charge. Regardless of army status. Based off what I've read here, people are considerate enough not to involve novices or non-coms unless it is an accident, and even if you admins place non-army at 50% charge, that still motivates people to just not join the army so they contribute less, regardless of combat prowess. I do not know anything about the Army, or what benefits they provide, btw. I could be off base.
After an hour, the tank blows at whatever charge it is at.
Disarm doesn't end the sanction immediately, but provides benefits to the city defending to make it a worthwhile objective
Over the course of the hour, the tank will passively charge to X amount (I'd say 50%, able to be moved up or down based on deaths contributed)
Um.. what else.. throwing ideas at this board here..
I genuinely don't know much about sanction mechanics, but disarms could count towards reducing sanction time or something. I dunno. You guys can deal with that one.
Could increase cost of tanks, but I dunno the costs off hand, or how that'd affect raiding in general.
I'd argue that disarming a tank should provide the people in the room with a nice xp boost, and everyone in the area who is a part of the city with a small xp buff, sorta like a morale boost cause huzzah nationalism/patriotism/pride.
Reset sanction progress if the entire raiding party is removed from the city before achieving it. Remove sanction entirely if the entire raiding party is removed from the city after achieving sanction. If there's a tank, sanction ends on disarmament.
Sure, you end up with giant deathballs, but that's better than spending a literal hour dealing with people sneak into a city, kill one person, and then urn out after starbursting twice just so that they can get a sanction and declare that they won.
I actually want to throw a question out there and see if anyone can give me an answer that will explain why this is a thing.
Why do you need to be AR3 to disarm tanks?
From my standpoint I find that to be a bit odd. It'd be super fucking awkward to be the last one left in a team fight just to find out you're AR2 and can't disarm. I get why you may want to wait to detonate and why not everyone should be able to detonate, but I don't understand why anyone would get in trouble for disarming. Also if its odd times and you have a few newer citizens who are capable or maybe just a boat load of non-coms another city could score a sanction, drop a tank, all go back to their ships and come back to detonate it after its charged. I believe we should remove the AR3 requirement for disarming personally.
My guess would be to prompt cities to have more mid-tier army folks, instead of just letting people sit perpetually at (and/or remove and re-add them later to) AR1.
And I love too Be still, my indelible friend That love soon might end You are unbreaking And be known in its aching Though quaking Shown in this shaking Though crazy Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
My guess would be to prompt cities to have more mid-tier army folks, instead of just letting people sit perpetually at (and/or remove and re-add them later to) AR1.
Hm. I like for it to make sense when someone is promoted. As in they did something to deserve the rank and not just got it because we needed someone to disarm on that time zone or whatever. Been working on some advancement stuff for the army here so maybe that will sort it out and more evenly distribute who we have that can disarm. We don't raid obviously and it would take a lot of disarms for people to advance passively. So it seems offering training and grading from non-com/new to army (AR1) all the way to someone who is capable of leading to some extent (~AR4) on their own and offering advancement as they progress kind of works that out for me. Main struggle so far has been making sure each rank is adequately covered and has a means to be graded for true progress in relation to the previous rank. I really dislike so many sitting at AR1 and it has been like that for a while now here, and it's something Id like to fix in a way that makes sense for Cyrene.
I actually want to throw a question out there and see if anyone can give me an answer that will explain why this is a thing.
Why do you need to be AR3 to disarm tanks?
From my standpoint I find that to be a bit odd. It'd be super fucking awkward to be the last one left in a team fight just to find out you're AR2 and can't disarm. I get why you may want to wait to detonate and why not everyone should be able to detonate, but I don't understand why anyone would get in trouble for disarming. Also if its odd times and you have a few newer citizens who are capable or maybe just a boat load of non-coms another city could score a sanction, drop a tank, all go back to their ships and come back to detonate it after its charged. I believe we should remove the AR3 requirement for disarming personally.
I was always under the impression it was because the admin knew at some point, some player would join an "enemy" city, and then sabotage their own tank detonations?
And yes, it sucks being the last person standing, only to find out you can't even disarm the damn tank.
I actually want to throw a question out there and see if anyone can give me an answer that will explain why this is a thing.
Why do you need to be AR3 to disarm tanks?
From my standpoint I find that to be a bit odd. It'd be super fucking awkward to be the last one left in a team fight just to find out you're AR2 and can't disarm. I get why you may want to wait to detonate and why not everyone should be able to detonate, but I don't understand why anyone would get in trouble for disarming. Also if its odd times and you have a few newer citizens who are capable or maybe just a boat load of non-coms another city could score a sanction, drop a tank, all go back to their ships and come back to detonate it after its charged. I believe we should remove the AR3 requirement for disarming personally.
I was always under the impression it was because the admin knew at some point, some player would join an "enemy" city, and then sabotage their own tank detonations?
And yes, it sucks being the last person standing, only to find out you can't even disarm the damn tank.
Get aided to security. Move stationary guard stack to tank. Wait for ar3 to show up. Problem solved.
Comments
There should be diminishing returns or tweak to the scaling. A tank shouldn’t charge to a full level one after a single engagement, imo, which happens a lot when lots of higher ranks are around. I’m not sure I even like the scaling.
Also, charge reduction on killing enemies should scale with army rank if we decide to keep the scaling.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Otoh, like someone said, if you add in 'counter-scaling' you risk drawing out raids even more.
First, the number of lives each defender chooses to use in a raid situation is entirely at their discretion, so they should be able to evaluate how many lives they are willing to feed the enemy and act accordingly - but they do not. Even the higher ranking army members are likely, especially likely, to do this, because they are generally experienced combatants who are used to regularly retouching starbursts and using their gem. These kinds of situations call for changing the mindset that more lives are strategically better - and not many defenders realize that, or act appropriately. Of course, this still favors the raiders, as they have no penalty for just massing backup lives, and that is perhaps an issue that should be addressed, as you mentioned. This still doesn't change the fact that defenders can be far more intelligent about how they intend to use their lives, and maybe, you know, even relax starburst and not feed extra kills when they get braziered solo into the entire enemy raid group.
Two, I'm not sure if I'd like to have raider deaths reduce charge, because this further reduces the feasibility of getting a level three tank - which is already so, so dependent on the defenders' decision to engage, which they almost certainly will not do once a level two tank is reached. If anything, I worry about the ability to get level two tanks if raider deaths reduces charge - this can create a pattern where level two and three tanks are not feasible in evenly matched raid situations, and can only be achievable by stomping the defending city several times in a row. That is not good. You want the fights for higher level tanks to be bloody but remain somewhat even, so the defenders believe they have a reasonable chance of success at re-engaging.
I am fine with a cost being associated with raider deaths. I would not like it to be in a way that makes higher level tanks more difficult to achieve, however - getting to these thresholds are already far too dependent on the choices of the defenders for my liking. I would like to see a level 3 tank in Achaea at least once before I die, plz.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
And I don't think a level two tank should be charged after a single engagement. A lvl 2 tank 18 min after sanction is gained just seems off to me.
I wouldn't mind if the deaths were "stored" and caused the tank to continue charging overtime rather than all at once (so if you wipe the defenders enough for a lvl 2, you'll get that lvl 2 eventually still if they stop defending), so there's just more time for defenders to try and disarm. I just think it sucks to have everyone drop what they're doing to defend just to go make one attempt and have the raiders leave with a lvl 2. Going for a lvl 2 should require a bit more.
I deliverance bombed you guys on guards (lol to that) to almost get a sanction, then we sanctioned and placed tank right away, then picked off a bunch more of you, killed your whole group with all of you bursting twice and some of you using flasks. The tank was about 60-65% to level 2 then. After that, you guys kept reincarnating/rezzing each other and rushing in small groups that we killed, or individually.
If you had regrouped instead of trying the small group stuff, you probably could have routed us and disarmed.
Both teams were alive, tank just got to full before we could take room.
I did think about something for this scenario specifically. Right now you can’t detonate or disarm a tank if enemy soldier is in the room. At l2, I think it would be worth considering if they are adjacent the same applies. At that point the tank is pressuring those rooms as well as the primary room.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Im all for disarm giving more to defenders, though. World messages, more experience, automatic capture on disarm, memento credit for everyone in room, ect. I think there's a lot that could be done incentively that doesn't just completely end a fight.
Despite having to disarm two Mhaldorian tanks last night, I'm very against disarm ending sanction or locking out raiders. Disarm reducing sanction timer by x minutes isn't a bad idea, but you're still putting more emphasis on raiders ability to hold a room, encouraging lopsided entrenchment. Killing every defender once doesn't guarantee a tank. Killing every offender once shouldn't guarantee anything either.
You could make defender deaths contribute 1x the base amount towards charge
Raider deaths reduce the charge by .25x
(Edited in): Everyone should contribute towards charge. Regardless of army status. Based off what I've read here, people are considerate enough not to involve novices or non-coms unless it is an accident, and even if you admins place non-army at 50% charge, that still motivates people to just not join the army so they contribute less, regardless of combat prowess.
I do not know anything about the Army, or what benefits they provide, btw. I could be off base.
After an hour, the tank blows at whatever charge it is at.
Disarm doesn't end the sanction immediately, but provides benefits to the city defending to make it a worthwhile objective
Over the course of the hour, the tank will passively charge to X amount (I'd say 50%, able to be moved up or down based on deaths contributed)
Um.. what else.. throwing ideas at this board here..
I genuinely don't know much about sanction mechanics, but disarms could count towards reducing sanction time or something. I dunno. You guys can deal with that one.
Could increase cost of tanks, but I dunno the costs off hand, or how that'd affect raiding in general.
I'd argue that disarming a tank should provide the people in the room with a nice xp boost, and everyone in the area who is a part of the city with a small xp buff, sorta like a morale boost cause huzzah nationalism/patriotism/pride.
Sure, you end up with giant deathballs, but that's better than spending a literal hour dealing with people sneak into a city, kill one person, and then urn out after starbursting twice just so that they can get a sanction and declare that they won.
Why do you need to be AR3 to disarm tanks?
From my standpoint I find that to be a bit odd. It'd be super fucking awkward to be the last one left in a team fight just to find out you're AR2 and can't disarm. I get why you may want to wait to detonate and why not everyone should be able to detonate, but I don't understand why anyone would get in trouble for disarming. Also if its odd times and you have a few newer citizens who are capable or maybe just a boat load of non-coms another city could score a sanction, drop a tank, all go back to their ships and come back to detonate it after its charged. I believe we should remove the AR3 requirement for disarming personally.
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
Stands to reason that you'd not have many AR3+'s in Cyrene given how you never raid and don't get attacked as often as other places.
However, the MoW has the power to promote manually also - and there's no reason why you can't create a programme / list of requirements for promotion.
I was always under the impression it was because the admin knew at some point, some player would join an "enemy" city, and then sabotage their own tank detonations?
And yes, it sucks being the last person standing, only to find out you can't even disarm the damn tank.
Tecton-Today at 6:17 PM