War proposal.

Makarios

We've been reading over the other thread and there's some fair criticisms of the current system in there. We'll be discussing a few other points of interest in the coming days, but a big one we'd like input on is the proposal below.

Currently war points serve as an internal tally and don't do anything else. We are considering letting them be spent: they'd probably be renamed from war points if they gained a more player facing role, but don't worry about that for now. Spending points would not impact on your tally for the war, think of them as two separate gauges: when you do an action both go up. One is relevant to the current war, one is spendable points and would track over multiple wars etc. This would ideally give underdogs a reason to participate, as even if they couldn't win the war they could obtain valuable assets over time.

So, though you're welcome to comment on that aspect of the proposal, the thing we'd really like input on is what would be attractive things these points could be spent upon. Don't worry about exact costs for now, you can suggest something be cheap or expensive but we'll hash all that out once we're happy with the listing. Some examples (not set in stone, this is very much a rough concept at this stage):

- The ability to boost a tank by 30% (only useable once per tank). Probably relatively cheap, but still costly.

- The ability to instantly shatter all shrines to a given god, regardless of consecration or level anywhere in the city. Costly, scales per shrine destroyed.

- The ability to convey a considerable bonus to experience for groups of citizens that hunt together. Probably cheap.

- The ability to immediately refill your font. Probably fairly costly, but no limit on how many times you can do it.

- The ability to shatter the orb improvement for the next achaean month over another city. Costly!

- The ability to boost your guard cap by a decent amount for the next Achaean year. Probably about equivalent to an additional barracks, probably pretty costly - I would not want to see this being spammed.

- The ability to empower your guardian in some form. We're still discussing specifics here, this would probably be a very expensive thing and one of the avatar esque longterm goals.

Of course, these should be quite good benefits, as these points will be a very limited resource. They will be spendable outside of wartime once acquired.

Discuss!

Ygia

Can we have some clarification on the second suggestion? Is that, say, Targossas can shatter all Sartan shrines in Mhaldor, or, all Sartan shrines in Targossas?
Is it a defensive, quick-repair thing to work against offpeak shrine proppers, or is it some kind of hyper fuck-you?
If it's the latter, I have the feeling that can lead to a lot of frustration for smaller/weaker cities that are struggling to keep their shrines up to begin with.

Adrik

Cities with multiple gods win out on that shrine shatter. I like the idea of being able to stop all shrine powers in a city for x amount of time.

Namino

Hey Mak.

Cool post. Step in the right direction to reinforce positive aspects of winning war. I'm going to go back to brass tacks on my thoughts on this.

There's two ways of considering a new gameplay mechanic/loop: closed versus open.

Closed loops are really common in single player games with tight focus. They operate in isolation, and produce a strong positive feedback cycle, where the rewards for completing a task are immediately reinvested into being able to do the task again, faster, more efficiently, allowing for harder versions of that task to be accomplished.

A good example of this is the Monster hunter series: Kill a monster > get monster parts > make better gear > kill stronger monster > get stronger monster parts > make better gear. It's a loop that exclusively feeds back into itself, which is to be expected for a game with a really tight focus. The only thing to do in Monster Hunter is... hunt monsters. So hunting monsters makes you a better monster hunter. Closed gameplay loops are very simple, which makes them very easy to balance, but also makes them significantly limited. If you don't care about killing monsters, you don't give a shit about this loop because it does nothing for you. This is why they're common in tightly focused games, because... if you don't care about hunting monsters, you wouldn't have bought MONSTER HUNTER.

Contrast this with an open loop, which is much more common in sandbox type games, especially MMOs.  The resources that you gain from one gameplay loop can be reinvested into a number of systems, allowing for you to diversify your experience by leveraging success in one area into success in another area. I'll use EvE online as an example: Explore an anomaly -> acquire component loot -> sell component loot for money OR keep component loot for research and development OR melt down component loot for material for industry -> if sold for money, spend money on better exploration gear OR better PvP equipment OR better PvE equipment OR clan (corporation) development things. Open gameplay loops are common in MMOs because even if you yourself don't care about exploration, the system affects you, providing materials for you to do the parts of the game you do enjoy. Even if you don't like exploring, you're really happy your friend does, because he's helping you out.

Why am I describing these?

Because the above post is a mostly closed loop proposal. With the exception of:

- The ability to convey a considerable bonus to experience for groups of citizens that hunt together. Probably cheap.

All of the rewards for going to war are closed loop benefits that allow you to go to war better or more efficiently next time. In a sandbox game like Achaea, this is suboptimal, because the only people who benefit from it are the people who were already jazzed on going to war in the first place. Noncombatant citizens have no reason to care. Contrast that with a system where war points can be invested into a large diversity of boosts for other game aspects (treasury boost, tax reduction on shops without actually affecting gold generation for the treasury, decreased harvesting balance times, more experience, faster ship sailing, ect ect ect), even people who don't go to war themselves are rooting for their raid teams and have reason to pay attention and play support roles, because the success of their military means they can do the things they like to do better, faster, and stronger too. I would strongly recommend including a lot more 'non-war' related boosts that war points can be spent on.

Also bring back denizen village raids.

Thanks.

Reyson

The second suggestion should be changed to a suppression of shrine powers for a duration, rather than destroying the shrines entirely. Sovereignty gets affected, and people have to spend a bunch of time re-bashing up six shrines, usually, on home turf. 

If the intent is to take worldburn and lesser shrine powers out of a fight, just make the power temporarily count all shrines in the area as dormant for the duration of the power.

Not only does destroying them all create a grind-y, unappealing pain in the ass to deal with, but it opens up the ability for raiders to put up their own shrine anywhere they want, and start their own worldburn/open up the avenue for leaving and pilgrimaging in, and that's a massive swing in the defensibility of a location.

I'm cool with these powers either evening a tipping factor out (or canceling it outright) or adding one benefit to the faction that initiates them. I don't think having one power do both of those things at once is a good idea.   

Makarios

Ygia said:

Can we have some clarification on the second suggestion? Is that, say, Targossas can shatter all Sartan shrines in Mhaldor, or, all Sartan shrines in Targossas?
Is it a defensive, quick-repair thing to work against offpeak shrine proppers, or is it some kind of hyper fuck-you?
If it's the latter, I have the feeling that can lead to a lot of frustration for smaller/weaker cities that are struggling to keep their shrines up to begin with.

I envisioned this as entirely defensive. I.e. Mhaldor can zap all the Deucalion shrines in Mhaldor, but not all the Aurora shrines over in Targossas.

Astarod

- The ability to raid a village (placing banners down with moderate guards). Probably relatively cheap, but still costly.

Please, please

Makarios

Namino said:

Hey Mak.

Cool post. Step in the right direction to reinforce positive aspects of winning war. I'm going to go back to brass tacks on my thoughts on this.

There's two ways of considering a new gameplay mechanic/loop: closed versus open.

Closed loops are really common in single player games with tight focus. They operate in isolation, and produce a strong positive feedback cycle, where the rewards for completing a task are immediately reinvested into being able to do the task again, faster, more efficiently, allowing for harder versions of that task to be accomplished.

A good example of this is the Monster hunter series: Kill a monster > get monster parts > make better gear > kill stronger monster > get stronger monster parts > make better gear. It's a loop that exclusively feeds back into itself, which is to be expected for a game with a really tight focus. The only thing to do in Monster Hunter is... hunt monsters. So hunting monsters makes you a better monster hunter. Closed gameplay loops are very simple, which makes them very easy to balance, but also makes them significantly limited. If you don't care about killing monsters, you don't give a shit about this loop because it does nothing for you. This is why they're common in tightly focused games, because... if you don't care about hunting monsters, you wouldn't have bought MONSTER HUNTER.

Contrast this with an open loop, which is much more common in sandbox type games, especially MMOs.  The resources that you gain from one gameplay loop can be reinvested into a number of systems, allowing for you to diversify your experience by leveraging success in one area into success in another area. I'll use EvE online as an example: Explore an anomaly -> acquire component loot -> sell component loot for money OR keep component loot for research and development OR melt down component loot for material for industry -> if sold for money, spend money on better exploration gear OR better PvP equipment OR better PvE equipment OR clan (corporation) development things. Open gameplay loops are common in MMOs because even if you yourself don't care about exploration, the system affects you, providing materials for you to do the parts of the game you do enjoy. Even if you don't like exploring, you're really happy your friend does, because he's helping you out.

Why am I describing these?

Because the above post is a mostly closed loop proposal. With the exception of:

- The ability to convey a considerable bonus to experience for groups of citizens that hunt together. Probably cheap.

All of the rewards for going to war are closed loop benefits that allow you to go to war better or more efficiently next time. In a sandbox game like Achaea, this is suboptimal, because the only people who benefit from it are the people who were already jazzed on going to war in the first place. Noncombatant citizens have no reason to care. Contrast that with a system where war points can be invested into a large diversity of boosts for other game aspects (treasury boost, tax reduction on shops without actually affecting gold generation for the treasury, decreased harvesting balance times, more experience, faster ship sailing, ect ect ect), even people who don't go to war themselves are rooting for their raid teams and have reason to pay attention and play support roles, because the success of their military means they can do the things they like to do better, faster, and stronger too. I would strongly recommend including a lot more 'non-war' related boosts that war points can be spent on.

Also bring back denizen village raids.

Thanks.

Definitely agree. More non war related things are definitely on the cards, and would likely have much broader appeal for the reasons you stated. I mostly included the combat ones as a rough example for what power level we're thinking, as that's generally much harder to quantify in an abstract sense. The sky is the limit!

As for denizen village raids, they had a lot of broken aspects (it was very much not an intended feature). I won't say they'd never return, because who knows. But they'd need a lot more work before they could actually function beyond the blowing up bit, which I appreciate is mostly what people liked about them.

Taryius

I love this idea!

I'd recommend adding bonus damage versus denizens if you hunt together, either alongside the xp bonus or instead of it. It would appeal more to already high-level players, and allow the city to team up to bash corpses if needed or get a much-needed bonus to an attempt against an honours mob. 

In the vein of non-combat buffs, spending war points to have an allied village send over a supply cart full of commodities that would be added to the cities commodity storage could be interesting. Get a small bonus of wood, stone, iron, gold, silver, etc etc. Could be used to keep improvements repaired, or to be sold to the city by the comm shop.

Could also add bonus endurance and willpower regeneration to everyone inside the city, for a cheap cost. It's a bit boring but could be useful for non-order members.

Ygia

Makarios said:

Ygia said:

Can we have some clarification on the second suggestion? Is that, say, Targossas can shatter all Sartan shrines in Mhaldor, or, all Sartan shrines in Targossas?
Is it a defensive, quick-repair thing to work against offpeak shrine proppers, or is it some kind of hyper fuck-you?
If it's the latter, I have the feeling that can lead to a lot of frustration for smaller/weaker cities that are struggling to keep their shrines up to begin with.

I envisioned this as entirely defensive. I.e. Mhaldor can zap all the Deucalion shrines in Mhaldor, but not all the Aurora shrines over in Targossas.

Thanks for your time and clarification! I deeply appreciate you taking the time to communicate with the community on this.

Kog

Under what circumstances do the admin envision people being willing to go to war, and consistently engage with the system? By which I mean, why/when would people be willing to accept a war declaration, then engage in good faith?

The Targossas/Mhaldor war showed a willingness to game the scoreboard- why give a sanction if you are ahead? Why fight if you aren't positive you will win, and by contrast why should you risk a sanction by engaging the enemy?

If I have a 1 tank advantage on day 1 of the war, it is in my best interest to not engage further either way. Losing out on the chance to generate war points may sting, but my lead cannot really be contested unless I slip up, because the only other ways to score require:
-Killing city leadership, who should log off for 2 weeks or refuse to leave guards at the least
-Kill city soldiers, who are not open PK
-Slay the city guardian/bash guards, which will occur off-peak for that org with significant numbers advantage (see: Ashtan/Hashan)
-Sink org-owned ships (which should stay docked for the duration).

All means of scoring seem to reward abusing login times and population, while also encouraging avoiding conflict that you might lose- even skirmishing against an enemy group is risky, because you run the risk of them bringing significantly more in a rush to claim soldier bonuses.

I don't know that much can be done about the unpleasant tendencies, but I do think it would be foolish to ignore the relatively fresh examples of system-gaming that occurred WITHOUT the financial/RP/points incentive.

In closing, I'm still not sure at what point war "makes sense" for both sides to declare/accept, because of the risk of loss- and even if two cities did go to war, there isn't sufficient carrot IC or OOC to justify engaging 99% of the time. Adding in war points is a decent way to encourage one side to participate more- the winning side, as they will be the ones generating the points. In a close war, maybe both do, but after a week I'd imagine one side or the other will be sick of it and hanging on out of obligation alone, if not throwing in the towel.  With that in mind, I'd suggest 2 things: make the war points available AFTER the war, and pool them. Winning side gets 66% of them, losing side gets 33%. Or some other, similar fraction. In an "ideal war", both sides would generate about half the total, as the score would be close, but this forced split rewards the winner while incentivizing the loser to wade into the bloodbath- if you get stomped and only ever really lose points from getting tanked/disarmed, at least you get some points at the end.

Atalkez

Make the denizen one do something like reduces damage taken from denizens by 50%, or something wild. Let’s see some honours mobs dives, I’m eyeing dragon Yudhi. When is the last time that guy died? Rovalamm has never died.

For the others, I like the idea. What do you envision how the points would be spent? MoW/CL discretion? Wouldn’t want a random point burn happening etc.

edit: Also, I’ve said it repeatedly, this system does not encourage skirmishing, and this proposal isn’t responding to this either. People want to skirmish, they do not want to raid as much. We need to have a system that supports skirmishing that isn’t dictated by Order membership. People liked the village raid, not because a tank got blown (though it was cool) but because the village become a hotbed of conflict without all of the issues that raiding introduces. I’m concerned this isn’t being given enough consideration.

Namino

I'll echo Atalkez's point about people liking the denizen village raid, due not to the boom boom, but due to the fact that it incidentally solved a lot of the biggest gripes about city raiding from both angles.

Firstly, it separated the conflict from people who weren't interested in it. If you're a social, non-PvP player, not going to Jaru or Petra during a conflict is not a huge restriction on your playstyle, but having to worry about walking into a raidgroup, or a holocaust, or a breathrain in your home city is. By moving the conflict out of the cities, it made it so the only people involved were the people who wanted to be there.

Secondly, it removed a lot of the aspects of raiding the PvPers don't like -- mainly guard stacks and the like. It felt like the deciding factor of the conflict wasn't a giant blob of NPCs getting hoisted onto your position, but rather the contribution and effort of the players themselves that was likely to determine the outcome of the fight.

Finally, it also make it feel less punishing to participate for the defenders, too. Instead of having to repay a massive loss of NPC guard life or have their infastructure wrecked by tanks, they could engage and not have to worry about supercharging the tank so much with their deaths, as the consequences of a big ole boom was not cripplingly severe.

Keeping in mind the reasons why the NPC village skirmishing was so popular and finding ways to replicate those effects in an intentional way in the war system you have in mind would be huge.

Tahquil

My recommendation would be keeping all war point purchases as benefits to the spending city. The orb shattering power and (to a lesser extent) the tank boost sound to me like spending points to punish other cities. To me, that's unfair. If Mhaldor and Targ went to war, got a bunch of points and then one of them turns around and starts spending those points to hit Cyrene hard ... that's a shitty position for Cyrene to be in.

Jinsun

SIEGE WEAPONS PLEASE (that is all)

Farrah

I do not personally like the shrine thing, even in a defensive sense. Claiming sovereignty in an enemy city is a pretty difficult and rare thing that already does not last terribly long since you can use guards to help defend you while you bring the shrines down. I'd rather not make it even less long lasting, personally, given the effort it takes to accomplish. I know the power would be expensive and maybe it's so expensive it's not even really worth using the resource for, but then it's a bad power for other reasons. So, personally, I do not like it. I'd be ok with a less expensive power that destroys the consecrations on all in city shrines, though.

I like the tank boost. What about a power that once activated makes a level 1 charged tank slowly tick up to level 2 passively like tanks normally do to level 1? Maybe if you have enough of the resource you can use it again at level 2 to have it passively go to level 3. Should be expensive and rare but it could be fun to have a way to get to level 3 more practically.

I love the orb disable. I don't really like the guard cap increase because boo guards.

Maybe a power to disable the city you are attacking's font, or to reset the weaken ticks down to 0.

Font refill and xp bonus are not very appealing to me, personally.

In terms of Avatar-esque things, I like the idea of basically supercharging the city font and that opening up temporary mechanical benefits but also being a fairly open ended 'rp avenue' opener. Mechanical benefits could be the ability to empower the font to give citizens stat/regen boosts that affect them wherever they go, not just in city. It'd be just a few days or so like Avatar, but you could do some other cool thing with the font's super-energy on an rp level.

Also, I am super happy this is being considered as a thing.

Micaelis

I agree with @Farrah about the shrines. It's rare enough that it wouldn't happen enough to be useful, and its cost would likely outweigh its use since you'd have the clear advantage at replacing the shrines.

I believe getting these points is going to be so rare that most of these actions (which are mostly one-off or temporary), while cool, still won't really convey the likely years and years necessary to get enough points to use them. How many wars/years would I need to fight in/for to be able to turn off an Orb for one day? I have an interest in disabling an Orb, but seems a bit underkill imo. 

I like the idea of empowering the guardian, which I read to mean a permanent change rather than a temporary one? I'm for long-term goals that require a lot of points but will have lasting effects for years to come. It doesn't necessarily have to be forever, but more than an Achaean month at least. 

What about something like unique deathsights for citizens of a city over a long span of time, in years?

Increasing the capacity of your tank reserves? Maybe for 5 years.

The ability to use points to instantly gain a sanction in a city? This is a bit iffy due to 4 a.m. raids but I don't like the sanction system as is, personally. 

Using points to create a lullaby similar to Pandora's to lull all guards to sleep for a given period of time. 

Using points in place of comms for improvements (to affect more than the combat sphere of a city). 

Just a few that sound cool off the top of my head. 

Taryius

If I'm understanding Makarios' post, and the war system announce posts. You'd gain war points for detonating, disarming, killing soldiers, killing guards and sinking ships while your city is at WAR.

You wouldn't get them for winning, or lose them for losing. And it would encourage participation, even if you might lose that tank, you could get some war points from getting some kills in the fights. The bloodier the war, the more points for both sides?

Iaxus

War points to buy some sort of effigy or statue that increases citizen experience gains under <x> level... probably 50 or 80. We gotta think of the newbs. It's beneficial for the city because more novices would want to come to your city, and it could be stacking. 5% extra per "purchase" to a limit.

Reyson

Weakening an honours mob either by toning down their damage or making them crittable would be fantastic. 

Maybe something that makes it so that relics don't decay via timer for a while for citizens holding them (but you still drop them on death, or lose them when you go on a ship)? 

One for added ship damage or defence to go punch a leviathan/kraken in the mouth would be badass, too. 

Keorin

I want to put another non-existent vote behind "bring back village raiding." While I totally acknowledge that it may have had all kinds of flaws as it was, it struck me as something both interesting and impactful enough that it was a meaningful improvement to the game even -with- those flaws.

Maybe it would take some refining to really get into an ideal state, but my hunch is that it would be a lot more fun to have it how it was, than to wait months and months to even have the potential to see it again.

Shirszae

Keorin said:

I want to put another non-existent vote behind "bring back village raiding." While I totally acknowledge that it may have had all kinds of flaws as it was, it struck me as something both interesting and impactful enough that it was a meaningful improvement to the game even -with- those flaws.

Maybe it would take some refining to really get into an ideal state, but my hunch is that it would be a lot more fun to have it how it was, than to wait months and months to even have the potential to see it again.

So much this. 

Also regarding the pool of things buyable by War points, I have no specific propositions but I think it's be best if most of the rewards affected things separate from pk ability for the most part.

Hunting improvements as mentioned, city boons in term of cheaper improvements maintenance, flavour things, reskins of classes to fit your city. The latter I think specially would be cool if doable. 

Veldrin

Would

- The ability to shatter the orb improvement for the next achaean month over another city. Costly!

just -disable- the orb or outright destroy it? Maybe it's just because english isn't my main language, but for me it reads like it would completely destroy the improvement over the next month, I'd be fine with the war powers being able to disable improvements / shrines, but I don't think they should outright destroy them. For shrines they could just destroy the consecration and disable shrine powers (for an hour perhaps?), and then people would still have to go and defile the shrines to actually remove them.


Maybe a player could use some points to 'hire some denizen soldiers defend them for x days' so they'd go hunting/exploring/resource gathering and the denizen soldiers would then defend the player against both other denizens and players

Ererean

Iaxus said:

War points to buy some sort of effigy or statue that increases citizen experience gains under <x> level... probably 50 or 80. We gotta think of the newbs. It's beneficial for the city because more novices would want to come to your city, and it could be stacking. 5% extra per "purchase" to a limit.

Think of the noobs

Minifie

This really doesn’t address or fix any issues I see with this system, especially since it doesn’t take into consideration the issues the war system allows for that seem to be getting ignored. The system itself still isn’t REALLY worth participating in compared to normal conflict instigators that exist.

Sothantos

Minifie said:

This really doesn’t address or fix any issues I see with this system, especially since it doesn’t take into consideration the issues the war system allows for that seem to be getting ignored. The system itself still isn’t REALLY worth participating in compared to normal conflict instigators that exist.

+1 to this -- I don't really think these sorts of rewards are the kind of thing people are looking for versus more 'meaningful' rewards or system overhauls e.g. claiming territory.

Adrik

So, this will be a massive overhaul of an idea, but I spent a good bit thinking on this.

Each city has 1 ally that CANNOT be swayed from them...

Cyrene gets Caer Witrin, or someone else besides.
Mhaldor gets Blackrock
Targossas gets Jaru
Hashan gets Tasur'ke
Eleusis gets Dryad Garden (Maybe choose somewhere else, considering Titania OP?)
Ashtan gets Petra or Thera, whichever fits better with old time alliance.

Every city can have more than one, but it requires RP, and other things. Infact, some cities DO have two already (Ashtan, Targossas, Mhaldor).

The reward for having an ally-status with a village is that periodically they send resources to the city. Something that is necessary for city upkeep. Maybe wood as a basis? So that not everything-and-it's-mother requires it. This is not, in any way, available to the players. It pays a portion of the monthly upkeep, as said upkeep ticks.

Relations can be upkept through defending said village, and other things as-yet-decided. Who knows!

Now, back to the topic of WAR.

War can be waged for a number of different reasons. The most common one is resources, but of course, there are other reasons as well. I think instead of a 5 million gold loss, it should be based upon how much you lost by. The war points gained by the other side affects the TOTAL cost, but your points REDUCE the total cost as well.  I'd say, at most, cap it at 5 million ever paid.  This adds in a sliding factor for loss, and makes it so that just getting a SLIGHT advantage and denying any point gain for the other side won't get your city out 5 mil.

Do away with accolades entirely. No one likes a dick measuring contest, especially one that is half-automated by the game.  Accolades from war should be set for 'special' RP wars, that have much more meaningful impacts than.. this. Also throw the like.. 2 year thing to the wayside.. let it be 1 year of fighting and 3~4 years of resting period. 12 days vs 24 days is a whole lot.

So, overall, why would you go to war, if not for gold?

War points! It's basically essence, except it benefits the city rather than a subset of said city. The idea here is for the total number of points gained over all, the winner gets 66~80% of the points generated from the war, the loser gets 20%~33% of the points generated. This gives decent incentives to both sides to participate, 

Some potential rewards? I'm not going to even remotely both listing out points, because I'm not that sort of guy.

Nothing involving ship-to-ship combat. Ship-to-Seamonster? Maybe. Increased defense against seamonsters who attack city ships (or personal ships of citizens? Iunno.)

Less-city upkeep. The city requires less commodities to run it's upgrades for X period of time. This allows for the city to make a bit of gold back (if on the losing side).

Tank reserve capacity is always good. Like. Prettty much always.

Quality of Life stuff. People under X level get moar experience...

Higher crit chance (Might be 2 stronk).

I have some other ideas, but I figured I'd post this.

Torrent

I like the opition be given to cities to drop desecration and judgement shines, as you never know when a god will go dormant and when they will return and could expand some shrine conflict more.

The lulling guards to sleep is a nice change as it could help in combating guards.

I would be happy for a temporary shield to stop earrings, like stormfront around an area.

Could also have something to raid comms with from another city as it was hinted a while back.

For seafaring could offer either a different type of ammo like dragons tears or a earring like aspect for ships.

I personally like others would like an additional skirmishing way aside from shrines. Kinda like exterminations or vivifcation.

Makarios

Atalkez said:

Make the denizen one do something like reduces damage taken from denizens by 50%, or something wild. Let’s see some honours mobs dives, I’m eyeing dragon Yudhi. When is the last time that guy died? Rovalamm has never died.

For the others, I like the idea. What do you envision how the points would be spent? MoW/CL discretion? Wouldn’t want a random point burn happening etc.

edit: Also, I’ve said it repeatedly, this system does not encourage skirmishing, and this proposal isn’t responding to this either. People want to skirmish, they do not want to raid as much. We need to have a system that supports skirmishing that isn’t dictated by Order membership. People liked the village raid, not because a tank got blown (though it was cool) but because the village become a hotbed of conflict without all of the issues that raiding introduces. I’m concerned this isn’t being given enough consideration.

MoW (and by extension CL) only most likely for spending points.

As for not addressing skirmishing, that's not the goal of this proposal. We'll talk about that aspect soon, but there are evidently a few problems to cover and a single change isn't going to fix all of them, so we'll tackle them one at a time. For reference, when I said village raiding didn't work I mean it actually didn't work - there are lots of things under the hood that break currently when a non city gets bits blown up.

Rangor

Open loop benefits that points could be spent on:

- tradeskill boosts aka. Gloves of harvesting effect. Super charge the font with points. Hug the font for a week long boost to your chosen tradeskill. Font charge diminishes auto in a week if not used, using it drains it back down to 100%.

- pve boosts similar to above, one of crit, dmg, dmg reduction, etc..


- supercharge a shrine, boosting your patrons essence.

- supercharge a city ship, boosting one of its stats. Hull, speed, manuvering etc.

- spend it on a new village denizen that does cool stuff, and/or sells unique things, titles customizations, heraldry, titles, deathsight lines. He only stays around for a bit so the novelty remains. Rp flavor stuff.

- honorline for the city. Wether you win or loose, with enough points you can invest them in a city honor line. No auto honor line for winning. Only your points decides what you get.

Minifie

Having some to think this through, the system could work but changes would need to happen:

remove the gold loss for engaging in war
make it so WP are gained in totality, then distributed 50/50 at the end (if Side A never fights/wars, there won't be any WP, just getting people TO engage will be better).
Move all the rewards to WP, winners get bragging rights. 
Remove accolades IMO, instead allow accolades for the year people build X advancement with WP (idol of conquest for crit and xp, idol of bloodshed for +damage and +DR against honours mobs that needs to be activated and lasts for an IG day as examples).
having small costs WP things to help with fights, and larger costs for permanent advancements seems good to me, it'll promote trying to engage more wars, even losing, because you can't get them without at least participating.

Basically, promote participating without having costs, I have found when the cost for losing is very little, to nothing, people are more likely to engage (not everyone, but it is something to some), and if the potential only exists to make gains, then surely people will be more interested to participate. Make sanctions, disarms and detonations count, and then as the stuff under the hood fixes to allow settlement tanking will expand this further. I think the system could work, but it really does need some consideration to how to reward players just for engaging, not almost solely cut to winning only, which will just lead to more system gaming (who doesn't want to pop a heap of tanks if losing, or detonating, will get more WP from the war anyway? )

just my .02.