War System Changes

Keorin

The only way I can think of myself to make raiding/sanctions during war not just turn into an avoidance fest or just encourage only off hours raiding would be if you could set a window of time where your city was vulnerable, like icons, but during that window an enemy can freely sanction on you without needing kills.

Which has its own problems, but I don't really see how you can have a serious war system when you can literally opt out of being attacked, or if you can just raid off hours all the time.

Ismay

Frankly, I don’t like -anything- that discourages raiding... That includes most of the items in this new system, and the idea of raid time windows.

 I don’t know how we could fix the war system properly, but then again, I’m just a player and therefore not paid to come up with content or mechanical stuff. 

Accipiter

I'd like for the loser in the war to get a consolation prize, maybe and extra 20 guards for 10 years or something. Anything to encourage joining in a war even if you aren't guaranteed to win.

Jinsun

It only took like five minutes for me to see some major flaws with this system. Namely: the initial launch did not come with a grace period or a reset to hostilities. For the last like decade Ashtan has had hostilities set to everyone and no one really bothered with it because no one ever declared war without leader or RP or news posts. Now almost as soon as the changes went live Targossas declared war on us. Ashtan has had at most like 10 people on Cwho lately. We've had raids almost every single day that had numbers in over our total CWHO. We're trying to rebuild and rally, and the war system couldn't have come at a worse time for us. It also came with zero interaction and tact. What interaction we did have was with a few divine who seemed fairly focus on their product being enjoyed when the fallbacks for us were pretty obvious. Yesterday from a character standpoint felt hopeless and it made me not want to be there. I stayed signed in and tried to work through all the politics of it and really it just killed a lot of my desire to be here. The weight of paying for this is gonna fall on a handful of players and all we really got from our patron and another god was simply yeah, just pay up and suck it up. I'm sorry but this is a game and it's supposed to be fun. Running a city is already a huge gold sink without the potential for losing millions of in game gold every few years. Why does every system you have create the necessity for every single loss to mean hours and hours of time spent recouping whatever obscene amount of gold is lost? 

Archaeon

Ah finally ashtan players are tasting their own medicine. 

Minifie

I think making winning rewarding, but losing just incur a, “you didn’t win” is punishment enough for a system you WANT people to opt into. Losing already feels shitty already, even if you throw yourself as best you can to prevent it. The city accolades, some reduction in costs for 2 IG years to upkeeps and adding some more tangible rewards to morale (higher hunting softcap, more xp from all sources, cheaper guard hiring and perhaps some description displays) would incentivize trying, and simply having no morale gain, no accolades, no bonuses etc as well as losing be punishment enough.

Also, during war, can all citizens WITHIN CITY LIMITS, of the cities at war be considered soldiers for the sake of post-sanction needs? Currently being smart about having x people not enlisted can be a way to game the system to make filling a tank more hit and miss.

Ysela

@Mhaldor, next time Irilan's active, remind me to ask her to bodyguard Ysela.

EDIT: while I'm posting... Some sort of benefit for cities that lose the war would be great, to lessen fear of accepting wars. Call it "revanchism" and make it a discount on guards and room repair  and ship salvaging etc (maybe even slightly stronger guards), automatically reduced arena fees for citizens, etc and have it last for the duration of the grace period.

Jinsun

Archaeon said:

Ah finally ashtan players are tasting their own medicine. 

Hi! You might not know this, but I quit raiding years ago because it just seemed like all we were doing was constantly forcing misery on each other. Most of the people in Ashtan right now except for maybe 3 people have not historically been raiders. Even before I quit I used to raid with Jhui and while there definitely were exceptions, most of the time we wouldn't raid if it felt easy or if it felt like we were just pointlessly crushing the other side. Also if I get it was too heavy handed I just left. Now, not only has the pendulum swung in a way that you definitely could lolsmash us day and night, but for the first time ever, there is a huge gold penalty if we fight back or lose.  Not only that but the actual build up was sad. If this is fun for you, awesome, but you're giving the few remaining people some heavy pay back for some shit that most of us haven't been a part of as we try to keep a city that's been around for over a decade from collapsing. Why? Because I care about this game and it's lore and Ashtan was the first city to truly get me invested in this lore and really stick with me. There was something special in Ashtan, and maybe it's gone, but I'll be damned if I let someone as petty as you be the downfall of the oldest city in the game.

Adrik

Best to just ignore the trolls rather than feeding them.

Either way.

Hostilities between cities were not reset, so Targossas got a free swing at forcing Ashtan to pay up 250k (or 500k? whatever it is).

The active bounty on all city leadership is literally the worst idea I have seen come out of this game in months, and that's pretty telling considering... Non-Coms who step up to lead a city, despite not wanting to get into combat... and then being told "Yeah you're gonna be, at maximum, ganked 24 times. Once every IRL day. If you die, your entire city is going to hate you for it because now you're part of the reason the city is coughing up 5 million gold to the enemy city."

There is very little incentive to partake in this. Incentive to raid (and potentially raise your hostility levels to HIGH). Little incentive for small cities (or unexperienced ones) to even attempt at trying to raid... This is only beneficial for larger cities with a military force. And no amount of "Well don't raid if u can't back up ur bite!" is going to cover that. We want a culture in the game that actively encourages people to step outside of their boundaries without huge penalties to them or their city.

A non-com played diplomatically in city politics and became city leader? Great! They're now city leadership and can help the cit--

Nevermind, that city just got DoW'd by Targossas/Mhaldor/Hashan and now they're open game to being murdered for the better part of a month. Why? REASONS.

As broken and stupid as the old system was.. it didn't just fuck over your city royally for going into a 'war' consentingly.

Gilliam

The Ashtani fighters who people want to grief the city over aren't in Ashtan anymore, or they're not logging in. Clearly there is some form of catharsis to be had here, but I'm hoping its done soon. When Cyrene is a more difficult raid target, you gotta realize you're not getting revenge on the people you think you are.

Archaeon

Jinsun said:

Archaeon said:

Ah finally ashtan players are tasting their own medicine. 

Hi! You might not know this, but I quit raiding years ago because it just seemed like all we were doing was constantly forcing misery on each other. Most of the people in Ashtan right now except for maybe 3 people have not historically been raiders. Even before I quit I used to raid with Jhui and while there definitely were exceptions, most of the time we wouldn't raid if it felt easy or if it felt like we were just pointlessly crushing the other side. Also if I get it was too heavy handed I just left. Now, not only has the pendulum swung in a way that you definitely could lolsmash us day and night, but for the first time ever, there is a huge gold penalty if we fight back or lose.  Not only that but the actual build up was sad. If this is fun for you, awesome, but you're giving the few remaining people some heavy pay back for some shit that most of us haven't been a part of as we try to keep a city that's been around for over a decade from collapsing. Why? Because I care about this game and it's lore and Ashtan was the first city to truly get me invested in this lore and really stick with me. There was something special in Ashtan, and maybe it's gone, but I'll be damned if I let someone as petty as you be the downfall of the oldest city in the game.

Tldr

Jinsun

Archaeon said:

Jinsun said:

Archaeon said:

Ah finally ashtan players are tasting their own medicine. 

Hi! You might not know this, but I quit raiding years ago because it just seemed like all we were doing was constantly forcing misery on each other. Most of the people in Ashtan right now except for maybe 3 people have not historically been raiders. Even before I quit I used to raid with Jhui and while there definitely were exceptions, most of the time we wouldn't raid if it felt easy or if it felt like we were just pointlessly crushing the other side. Also if I get it was too heavy handed I just left. Now, not only has the pendulum swung in a way that you definitely could lolsmash us day and night, but for the first time ever, there is a huge gold penalty if we fight back or lose.  Not only that but the actual build up was sad. If this is fun for you, awesome, but you're giving the few remaining people some heavy pay back for some shit that most of us haven't been a part of as we try to keep a city that's been around for over a decade from collapsing. Why? Because I care about this game and it's lore and Ashtan was the first city to truly get me invested in this lore and really stick with me. There was something special in Ashtan, and maybe it's gone, but I'll be damned if I let someone as petty as you be the downfall of the oldest city in the game.

Tldr

Think you meant TLCR ("too long can't read")

Archaeon

Jinsun said:

Archaeon said:

Jinsun said:

Archaeon said:

Ah finally ashtan players are tasting their own medicine. 

Hi! You might not know this, but I quit raiding years ago because it just seemed like all we were doing was constantly forcing misery on each other. Most of the people in Ashtan right now except for maybe 3 people have not historically been raiders. Even before I quit I used to raid with Jhui and while there definitely were exceptions, most of the time we wouldn't raid if it felt easy or if it felt like we were just pointlessly crushing the other side. Also if I get it was too heavy handed I just left. Now, not only has the pendulum swung in a way that you definitely could lolsmash us day and night, but for the first time ever, there is a huge gold penalty if we fight back or lose.  Not only that but the actual build up was sad. If this is fun for you, awesome, but you're giving the few remaining people some heavy pay back for some shit that most of us haven't been a part of as we try to keep a city that's been around for over a decade from collapsing. Why? Because I care about this game and it's lore and Ashtan was the first city to truly get me invested in this lore and really stick with me. There was something special in Ashtan, and maybe it's gone, but I'll be damned if I let someone as petty as you be the downfall of the oldest city in the game.

Tldr

Think you meant TLCR ("too long can't read")

Tldr

Andraste

Adrik said:

The active bounty on all city leadership is literally the worst idea I have seen come out of this game in months, and that's pretty telling considering... Non-Coms who step up to lead a city, despite not wanting to get into combat... and then being told "Yeah you're gonna be, at maximum, ganked 24 times. Once every IRL day. If you die, your entire city is going to hate you for it because now you're part of the reason the city is coughing up 5 million gold to the enemy city."

There is very little incentive to partake in this. Incentive to raid (and potentially raise your hostility levels to HIGH). Little incentive for small cities (or unexperienced ones) to even attempt at trying to raid... This is only beneficial for larger cities with a military force. And no amount of "Well don't raid if u can't back up ur bite!" is going to cover that. We want a culture in the game that actively encourages people to step outside of their boundaries without huge penalties to them or their city.

A non-com played diplomatically in city politics and became city leader? Great! They're now city leadership and can help the cit--

Nevermind, that city just got DoW'd by Targossas/Mhaldor/Hashan and now they're open game to being murdered for the better part of a month. Why? REASONS.

As broken and stupid as the old system was.. it didn't just fuck over your city royally for going into a 'war' consentingly.

While i understand some of the potential rationale for this under the mentality of killing 'persons of interest', but it's not like we needed another reason for people to hide out on ships to avoid getting ganked.

It would have been nice to see a reset of hostilites to go along with the launching of this system, but that would have probably come across as pretty insane way to go about things.

My issue main with the way this was implemented is that while it does serve to put in place a metric by which to measure victory/loss in war which has long been necessary, there are other loopholes that will likely be exploited in order to take advantage of these mechanics. In some ways I feel like they didn't go far enough to address the balance of these engagements including putting in place checks for off hours/large discrepancies between player numbers, guards/guard movement (discussed above by Farrah), fast travel in and out of cities during these incursions. I also don't think it goes far enough in terms of how to engage 'non-combat' players in a meaningful way, which I discussed in another thread and so won't rehash here.
This feels like beta for a better system, that with the help of the community could become something quite good.

I've noticed a lot of talk about incentive here, which is quite relevant and something that the game struggles with a bit of a crisis of across multiple game modes. The tools of the trade are punishment or reward, the 'carrot' or the 'stick'. While every reward not be something of monetary value, it has to be something rewarding enough to incentivise engagement.
To this ends, this system struggles with the carrot and the stick. It doesn't offer enough in direct reward to the players who choose to engage, ie, other than being able to claim that you defeated so-and-so (bragging rights) via the accolade system. There's nothing that the player can take from winning the war.
The 'stick' also become marginalized and arbitrary by the fact that the players themselves have no personal connection (or even a general knowledge) of city finances to motivate them again other than ego damage. This system is further trivialized due to the city's ability to essentially print money due to controlling city credits prices and availability.

Tentative pros:
I do like that city repair stops during a war, that feels like a step in the right direction.

I do like that there is a financial component to the consequence to the city on the losing end. (but think more creative/authentic additions could be done here to make this more interesting)

I do like that city allies are involved, but it seems pretty superficial (so again feel like there could be more done here to affect the ebb and flow of battles, supply chain, city guard buffs/debuffs)

I like that city accolades are involved, but feel like perhaps this could also affect personal honours for the major players.

Issues/concerns:
The turnaround time for ending a war and redeclaring war on the same target seems a bit short. (This may be offset by how quickly a city can build up aggression and if cities are both set to neutral after ending a war).

This system may lend to further tip the scales of city versus city balance in favor of heavyweights. (Cause lets be honest, Achaeans love a good dogpile).

I agree with others' feedback about monthly bounties on council members, even though i see how this puts additional pressure for them to not drag out wars unnecessarily (so perhaps a necessary evil). I do agree that other persons of interest might also be worth bountying since this system may inadvertantly reinforce the installation of puppet members to these positions (maybe an irrational worry, but often times the minister of war is not the most active raid leader in any given city).

Something needs done about current state of guards and guard movement which I feel like is a gaping hole in the system that needs addressed big time.

Farrah

I think incentive structures are very important and not really considered much in this. I can't really think of any reason to join a war I think I'm going to lose. All the war does is add loss. It's like entering an agreement to pay another city 5 million gold with no consideration at all. It's completely irrational to agree to a war you think you'll lose, and that's bad.

If you compare it to combat in general, I'm willing to engage in combat I think I'm going to lose because it's fun. Combat itself is enjoyable to me, so there's no extra incentive needed. But the war system doesn't actually add anything from a "fun" perspective either. There's no new system to play around with and enjoy. You're just agreeing to add loss conditions to your combat. People would only ever agree to that if both sides think they will win, which is kind of rare. So I think the issue is not only the punishment involved that will deter some people from wanting to engage but lack of incentive to engage in something that doesn't really add anything for your side.

It'd be interesting if war opened up opportunities even for the loser. So you could approach it as "we may lose this war, but we have X goal that we're going to gain out of it." Things can absolutely be rewarding for both sides, and that encourages engagement more than anything. But this system doesn't do that.

I also am just very strongly against a mechanically defined victory based on gameable mechanics, though. People are worried about raids happening during off hours but I think it'd be better to lose to raids during off hours (which means your city isn't as strong throughout the day as the other city) than losing to a city literally refusing to engage you, which to me just feels completely unsatisfying. You can beat the off hour raiding by raiding them back, too. There'd have to be other tweaks like maybe only one tank per raid and some way to repair a destroyed tank room, but you should never win a war by refusing to fight. That would bother me more than anything as a participant in a war.

Jinsun

We've been working and looking for a good way to spin it or some sort of good loss and so far everything just feels like a half hearted "you got us. Here's 250k" there's nothing fun about this and knowing we'll lose 5 million if we fight it is even worse 

Laedha

I think it's telling that Laedha (a shite combatant and supporter of Cyrenian defensive neutrality) WANTS us to go to war with Hashan because of the Tsol'teth occupation, but the mechanics of the system make it a terrible idea for us to try. That seems like the opposite of what the admin want. When even the most enthusiastic combatants in Cyrene are saying that we shouldn't go to war even though we have a solid RP reason, something's broken. 

Kog

I'm extra skeptical if they don't plan to give specifics on what triggers hostility, like someone said. And I can't find a way to even check for hostility levels.

"Oops I accidentally lost my city 250k+ sinking that ship" does nothing but discourage people in weaker orgs from participating in conflict. Ashtan's navy has a good day and sinks 5 Mhaldorian ships, oops now they have a war challenge. Raid someone back a few times and win by picking your fights well? War declared on you, better hope you weren't aggressive enough to hit that 2 million mark for mutual hostilities.

I suppose my issue boils down to this seeming weirdly pay-to-play.

Edit: And to fend off potential criticism of being unwilling to lose, I think I've done a lot more losing than most cities, and we make a point to avoid using guards. Cyrene also gave up the only level 3 tank in the history of tanks, so far as I am aware, and we did it by trying again and again rather than turtling and waiting out the level 1/2 like all the other cities have done. I don't mind losing, I do mind the significantly heightened stakes for losing that provide no incentive to engage with conflict systems for fear of triggering a loss.

Achilles

Pretty amusing Ashtan is crying this hard when nothing has even happened yet.  They literally had relations towards Targossas (and before that Shallam) set at hostile for over 10 real life years.  Through broken skills (fk u pit), laughably lopsided combatants, artefacts etc they raided Shallam and Targossas daily for real life years.  

I understand the griefers from Ashtan aren't even logging in anymore (no surprise there, that's how bullies react to adversity) but maybe you all should remember then when the pendulum swings the other way in the future.

Micaelis

This gold system seems arbitrary. Given a war, I'll have a good time I imagine. I'm sure some people won't but those who specifically go after combat will, even though we might complain here and there. But those same people don't care at all about the gold, which seems to be the main boon/loss of the system itself. Those people who do care likely aren't even going to be involved in the war, generally speaking. 

I'm not sure I agree that I should have the capability to cripple a subsection of a city's playerbase financially to sate my lust for conflict, as the gain and loss in gold IC and OOC are very, very low on my priority list, personally. 

Kinilan

Kog said:

I'm extra skeptical if they don't plan to give specifics on what triggers hostility, like someone said. And I can't find a way to even check for hostility levels.

"Oops I accidentally lost my city 250k+ sinking that ship" does nothing but discourage people in weaker orgs from participating in conflict. Ashtan's navy has a good day and sinks 5 Mhaldorian ships, oops now they have a war challenge. Raid someone back a few times and win by picking your fights well? War declared on you, better hope you weren't aggressive enough to hit that 2 million mark for mutual hostilities.

I suppose my issue boils down to this seeming weirdly pay-to-play.

Edit: And to fend off potential criticism of being unwilling to lose, I think I've done a lot more losing than most cities, and we make a point to avoid using guards. Cyrene also gave up the only level 3 tank in the history of tanks, so far as I am aware, and we did it by trying again and again rather than turtling and waiting out the level 1/2 like all the other cities have done. I don't mind losing, I do mind the significantly heightened stakes for losing that provide no incentive to engage with conflict systems for fear of triggering a loss.

Nobody is going to start a war by sinking a city ship unless their faction is already pushing to increase hostilities. The number of actually city owned ships is about 20 and a number of them are dry docked from lack of use. Most people use personal ships.  Oh and Mhaldor doesn't even own 5 city owned ships so the only way your example would even happen is if they chose to keep going at it after salvaging.

Namino

I'm going to echo a lot of what's been touched on in this thread, by going back to really basic game design principals that I think are being roundly ignored in this change.

Caveat is that I'm a rogue. I don't participate in any war.

However, incentivizing player participation in game systems is accomplished in two ways, one of which is negative reinforcement (perform poorly and suffer) and the other is positive reinforcement (perform well and benefit). This system certainly has aspects of both, but from my perspective it is very heavy on the stick and very light on the carrot. It's too early to say, but I'd bet money that refocusing the incentives such that rather than punishing losers you reward victors, you'll see a lot more enthusiasm.

I'd recommend a reimagining of this system with those basic tenets in mind.

Micaelis

Namino said:

I'm going to echo a lot of what's been touched on in this thread, by going back to really basic game design principals that I think are being roundly ignored in this change.

Caveat is that I'm a rogue. I don't participate in any war.

However, incentivizing player participation in game systems is accomplished in two ways, one of which is negative reinforcement (perform poorly and suffer) and the other is positive reinforcement (perform well and benefit). This system certainly has aspects of both, but from my perspective it is very heavy on the stick and very light on the carrot. It's too early to say, but I'd bet money that refocusing the incentives such that rather than punishing losers you reward victors, you'll see a lot more enthusiasm.

I'd recommend a reimagining of this system with those basic tenets in mind.

I'd disagree simply because I don't see a stick or carrot. Assuming one wins a war, you win some gold. Most cities have Smaug-level mountains sitting in reserves already. Who honestly cares about adding more to a pile you already don't care about? Couple that with thousands of credits and that carrot is a baby carrot. I might be speaking just for myself but the chance of winning/losing gold I already have no interest in has absolutely nothing to do with my decision to go after war with any given city. I'm more interested in the concepts mentioned by @Silas and @Farrah.

Edit: What I mean is I disagree that the "stick" of losing gold is a deterrent, not that you need a better incentive. That I agree with, as gold is an awful incentive. 

Kog

Kinilan said:

Kog said:

I'm extra skeptical if they don't plan to give specifics on what triggers hostility, like someone said. And I can't find a way to even check for hostility levels.

"Oops I accidentally lost my city 250k+ sinking that ship" does nothing but discourage people in weaker orgs from participating in conflict. Ashtan's navy has a good day and sinks 5 Mhaldorian ships, oops now they have a war challenge. Raid someone back a few times and win by picking your fights well? War declared on you, better hope you weren't aggressive enough to hit that 2 million mark for mutual hostilities.

I suppose my issue boils down to this seeming weirdly pay-to-play.

Edit: And to fend off potential criticism of being unwilling to lose, I think I've done a lot more losing than most cities, and we make a point to avoid using guards. Cyrene also gave up the only level 3 tank in the history of tanks, so far as I am aware, and we did it by trying again and again rather than turtling and waiting out the level 1/2 like all the other cities have done. I don't mind losing, I do mind the significantly heightened stakes for losing that provide no incentive to engage with conflict systems for fear of triggering a loss.

Nobody is going to start a war by sinking a city ship unless their faction is already pushing to increase hostilities. The number of actually city owned ships is about 20 and a number of them are dry docked from lack of use. Most people use personal ships.  Oh and Mhaldor doesn't even own 5 city owned ships so the only way your example would even happen is if they chose to keep going at it after salvaging.

It's less about the specific numbers and more the uncertainty. Will one sunk ship set hostile? I doubt it. But will 2 tanks and one sunk ship? Who knows. Killing citizens in the city increases it, as does sanctioning and tanks. There is no way to tell how, in what amounts. No way to even tell you're getting close, so far as I am aware, and it seems purposefully obfuscated.

I'm not sure why you fixated on arbitrary numbers at the end there either, but it's text so perhaps something was lost in the translation.

Jinsun

Achilles said:

Pretty amusing Ashtan is crying this hard when nothing has even happened yet.  They literally had relations towards Targossas (and before that Shallam) set at hostile for over 10 real life years.  Through broken skills (fk u pit), laughably lopsided combatants, artefacts etc they raided Shallam and Targossas daily for real life years.  

I understand the griefers from Ashtan aren't even logging in anymore (no surprise there, that's how bullies react to adversity) but maybe you all should remember then when the pendulum swings the other way in the future.

Again you're largely speaking to people who have actively not wanted to be a part of that culture for some time and are seeking to dole a punishment far greater than anyone historically or mechanically could have. And stop pretending like Ashtan has always just constantly been a powerhouse or been raiding or that targ is some perceptual victim. We've all had our peaks and valleys. We've all been kicked when we were down by others, but none of us have lost a war to the tune of 2-5 million gold yet. Also if you want a reminder of one of Ashtans low points, I was MoW once :l:lol:

Micaelis

Jinsun said:

Achilles said:

Pretty amusing Ashtan is crying this hard when nothing has even happened yet.  They literally had relations towards Targossas (and before that Shallam) set at hostile for over 10 real life years.  Through broken skills (fk u pit), laughably lopsided combatants, artefacts etc they raided Shallam and Targossas daily for real life years.  

I understand the griefers from Ashtan aren't even logging in anymore (no surprise there, that's how bullies react to adversity) but maybe you all should remember then when the pendulum swings the other way in the future.

Again you're largely speaking to people who have actively not wanted to be a part of that culture for some time and are seeking to dole a punishment far greater than anyone historically or mechanically could have. And stop pretending like Ashtan has always just constantly been a powerhouse or been raiding or that targ is some perceptual victim. We've all had our peaks and valleys. We've all been kicked when we were down by others, but none of us have lost a war to the tune of 2-5 million gold yet. Also if you want a reminder of one of Ashtans low points, I was MoW once :l:lol:

Shallam lost a war to the tune of millions of gold. They bought a ship with it, called Shallam's Loss. 

Edit: "They" being Ashtan, who bought a ship. 

Jinsun

Micaelis said:

Jinsun said:

Achilles said:

Pretty amusing Ashtan is crying this hard when nothing has even happened yet.  They literally had relations towards Targossas (and before that Shallam) set at hostile for over 10 real life years.  Through broken skills (fk u pit), laughably lopsided combatants, artefacts etc they raided Shallam and Targossas daily for real life years.  

I understand the griefers from Ashtan aren't even logging in anymore (no surprise there, that's how bullies react to adversity) but maybe you all should remember then when the pendulum swings the other way in the future.

Again you're largely speaking to people who have actively not wanted to be a part of that culture for some time and are seeking to dole a punishment far greater than anyone historically or mechanically could have. And stop pretending like Ashtan has always just constantly been a powerhouse or been raiding or that targ is some perceptual victim. We've all had our peaks and valleys. We've all been kicked when we were down by others, but none of us have lost a war to the tune of 2-5 million gold yet. Also if you want a reminder of one of Ashtans low points, I was MoW once :l:lol:

Shallam lost a war to the tune of millions of gold. They bought a ship with it, called Shallam's Loss. 

Edit: "They" being Ashtan, who bought a ship. 

Ahhh I am assuming the gold was a condition of negotiated war, though, and not a forced punishment for losing an unwanted war 

Namino

Micaelis said:

Namino said:

I'm going to echo a lot of what's been touched on in this thread, by going back to really basic game design principals that I think are being roundly ignored in this change.

Caveat is that I'm a rogue. I don't participate in any war.

However, incentivizing player participation in game systems is accomplished in two ways, one of which is negative reinforcement (perform poorly and suffer) and the other is positive reinforcement (perform well and benefit). This system certainly has aspects of both, but from my perspective it is very heavy on the stick and very light on the carrot. It's too early to say, but I'd bet money that refocusing the incentives such that rather than punishing losers you reward victors, you'll see a lot more enthusiasm.

I'd recommend a reimagining of this system with those basic tenets in mind.

I'd disagree simply because I don't see a stick or carrot. Assuming one wins a war, you win some gold. Most cities have Smaug-level mountains sitting in reserves already. Who honestly cares about adding more to a pile you already don't care about? Couple that with thousands of credits and that carrot is a baby carrot. I might be speaking just for myself but the chance of winning/losing gold I already have no interest in has absolutely nothing to do with my decision to go after war with any given city. I'm more interested in the concepts mentioned by @Silas and @Farrah.

Edit: What I mean is I disagree that the "stick" of losing gold is a deterrent, not that you need a better incentive. That I agree with, as gold is an awful incentive. 

Let me be more specific. What I'm asking is, what do you GET for winning a war? I asked on discord and what I came away with is tankxp for attackers on an individual level and 30k per room destroyed. Contrasting this to what you lose if you're defeated, which is I think 25k per destroyed room to rebuild, comms, money to restock soldiers, and now your city ministry, many of whom may be noncoms, are being butchered daily.

Maybe I'm missing something tipping the scales here as a rogue with only passing familiarity, but it seems war in Achaea is more about visiting misery on your opponents rather than acquiring benefits for yourself.

Which is probably why it generates a lot of salt.

Micaelis

Jinsun said:

Micaelis said:

Jinsun said:

Achilles said:

Pretty amusing Ashtan is crying this hard when nothing has even happened yet.  They literally had relations towards Targossas (and before that Shallam) set at hostile for over 10 real life years.  Through broken skills (fk u pit), laughably lopsided combatants, artefacts etc they raided Shallam and Targossas daily for real life years.  

I understand the griefers from Ashtan aren't even logging in anymore (no surprise there, that's how bullies react to adversity) but maybe you all should remember then when the pendulum swings the other way in the future.

Again you're largely speaking to people who have actively not wanted to be a part of that culture for some time and are seeking to dole a punishment far greater than anyone historically or mechanically could have. And stop pretending like Ashtan has always just constantly been a powerhouse or been raiding or that targ is some perceptual victim. We've all had our peaks and valleys. We've all been kicked when we were down by others, but none of us have lost a war to the tune of 2-5 million gold yet. Also if you want a reminder of one of Ashtans low points, I was MoW once :l:lol:

Shallam lost a war to the tune of millions of gold. They bought a ship with it, called Shallam's Loss. 

Edit: "They" being Ashtan, who bought a ship. 

Ahhh I am assuming the gold was a condition of negotiated war, though, and not a forced punishment for losing an unwanted war 

I guess you could say that. It was more like "We'll stop murdering you all every minute of every day and allow you to enter Shallam again if you give us all this gold."

Jinsun

Micaelis said:

Jinsun said:

Micaelis said:

Jinsun said:

Achilles said:

Pretty amusing Ashtan is crying this hard when nothing has even happened yet.  They literally had relations towards Targossas (and before that Shallam) set at hostile for over 10 real life years.  Through broken skills (fk u pit), laughably lopsided combatants, artefacts etc they raided Shallam and Targossas daily for real life years.  

I understand the griefers from Ashtan aren't even logging in anymore (no surprise there, that's how bullies react to adversity) but maybe you all should remember then when the pendulum swings the other way in the future.

Again you're largely speaking to people who have actively not wanted to be a part of that culture for some time and are seeking to dole a punishment far greater than anyone historically or mechanically could have. And stop pretending like Ashtan has always just constantly been a powerhouse or been raiding or that targ is some perceptual victim. We've all had our peaks and valleys. We've all been kicked when we were down by others, but none of us have lost a war to the tune of 2-5 million gold yet. Also if you want a reminder of one of Ashtans low points, I was MoW once :l:lol:

Shallam lost a war to the tune of millions of gold. They bought a ship with it, called Shallam's Loss. 

Edit: "They" being Ashtan, who bought a ship. 

Ahhh I am assuming the gold was a condition of negotiated war, though, and not a forced punishment for losing an unwanted war 

I guess you could say that. It was more like "We'll stop murdering you all every minute of every day and allow you to enter Shallam again if you give us all this gold."

Ahh glad that's being visited on people who definitely weren't involved mostly by other characters that also weren't involved with little to no role play other than mechanical selection. Good fight I guess *shrug*