War
Printed From: Illyriad
Category: Miscellaneous
Forum Name: Suggestions & Game Enhancements
Forum Description: Got a great idea? A feature you'd like to see? Share it here!
URL: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=1048
Printed Date: 17 Apr 2022 at 03:29
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.03 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: War
Posted By: Brids17
Subject: War
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 04:40
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I can't promise this thread is going to be the most well organized thread but I will do my best to put it together as best as I can. So to start off, let's talk about money. Not gold or not cows but real money. In order for the GMs to make money they need players to buy prestige. This allows the game to technically be free to play which draws in new players but at the same time allows the GMs to get money to continue making the game and pay their bills and such. So why do players buy prestige? Well, some buy it because they don't want to wait 2-4 days getting a building to level 20. Others buy it just to support the game. And then others buy it because of war. If your city is under siege, you might need prestige to keep your population up to save your city. You might need it to build troops faster and gain resources faster. Whatever the case in this game war is the main reason people buy prestige. So one would think the GMs would want to encourage war by making it fun and rewarding. However war is a double edged sword. War is extremely demoralizing in this game. You spend months building your city and for most, building is boring. Not many people jump for joy when their farmyard reaches level 12. You may even resort to buying prestige to avoid the extremely long building times. So when an enemy player destroys your city, something that took you months to build, many people don't want to start all over again. Worse yet, if all your cities are destroyed you may find yourself moved all the way across the map, away from all your allies. Many people quit after their cities have been destroyed. The war between White and Harmless is a good example of this. Many members of White, some very high ranked players, up and quit the game. It wasn't because building was boring or because they were tired of waiting for ships to be added or because they were mad because Caravans were going to have a gold upkeep cost. They quit because of war. So the problem is that war is what makes the GMs money but it's war that makes the GMs lose paying customers. The thing that keeps this game going is the thing that kills it. However, I have no suggestions on how to fix this. War needs to be fun and encouraged but it can't be so demoralizing or else the player base will die. It's something that will require a lot of thinking and what better place to think than the forums. So I encourage people to share their thoughts and opinions on the matter. Brids |
Replies:
Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 09:47
I find this conclusion highly questionable. I know a fair bit about the White players and while I--a Harmless member--would not be the best source of impartial criticism, I will say it seemed very much the case that most of them simply came for the wrong reasons and didn't find what they were seeking. Without getting into the details of White itself, note how many in Black--a group of players not cut from the same cloth--have continued and rebuilt themselves under a new name despite being misused and discarded by White as well as overpowered by Harmless. Without any other more compelling (and believable) example, I'm not convinced there's any problem. Rather, I'd point to the multiple other browser-based games that thrive even though some of them are considerably more brutal and ruthless to paying players (like Tribal Wars)...or worse, blatantly handing victory to the highest bidder (like Travian). By comparison, Illyriad already provides far better value on expense and is far more forgiving of failure by such means as relocation with research retained and game mechanics that quite effectively minimize incentive to batter smaller players who haven't first made themselves enemies. |
The war between White and Harmless is a good example of this. Many
members of White, some very high ranked players, up and quit the game.
It wasn't because building was boring or because they were tired of
waiting for ships to be added or because they were mad because Caravans
were going to have a gold upkeep cost. They quit because of war.Posted By: Beengalas
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 11:29
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This thread is
the result of a conversation in Goonies, which I was a part of, and I shall add
my contribution to this. I will split the subject into pieces to be able to
discuss them more deeply and I most likely will repeat some that brids already
wrote. --Overview-- Through the
years I have been playing all type of browser games, where some idea has been
successful and others haven't. One of my first game, Utopia, is still living
and breathing, even after 12 years. But others is long gone, or just goes on
automatic with no one taking care of them. This is nothing unusual, everything
has it cycle and some longer then others. But it shall eventually end. Illyriad
isn't an exception to this rule, but its cycle may end sooner then intended and
this is what this thread is about: avoiding that. ----- Table of
content ----- 1. Economy,
the real one 2. War 2.1. Losing
everything 2.2 Siege,
lose even more 3. Alliances 3.1 3.2 4 4.1 1. Economy, the
real one The developers
of Illyriad do, like almost all other people in this world, have an interest in
getting something in return for thier work. This is nothing strange and I
assume most people are all right with that (there are some people who critizise
the possibility to spend cash to become better, but that is the socialist
jealous attitude). So our developers of this game has an interest in making
cash and therefore they added a currency in-game that is tied to hard currency.
Prestige they call it. Now they need
to create an incentive for the players to actually spend thier cash to buy
prestige. First is to create a darn good game so the people gladly just buy
prestige to support the developers of the game, in order to be able to continue
enjoy this game. Second, one may create a situation in the game that might be
something the player rather avoid, that can be skipped if one spend prestige
(most people will think of speed (movement and building). I will return to this
later, but keep in mind that the developers wants revenue. 2. War Consider all
games out there, every single one of them, and then try to name how many of
these has no conflict within them. I can assure you, all games, in some senses,
involve conflict. Conflict doesn’t always means violence and a like, but two or
more parties that wants a resource with limited supply and it is an extremely important
element of games. No conflict, no game, since you have nothing to solve or work
with. Illyriad is no exception, it NEEDS conflict or it will die. And I will
argue that it might already be dying. There is of
course conflict in Illyriad and sometimes plenty of it. But the current game
mechanics makes most of the conflict just a destructive force with no return to
status quo. Conflict, in a game like this, must have ending when the loosing
side has a good chance of recovery. 2.1 Losing
everything Brids took up
the example of the war between H? and White. This war was nothing but
completely and utterly destructive, as nothing good has yet come out of it. H?
may see themselves as a winner, but in reality, they where also on the losing
side, as was White of course, but also the game developers and all other
players. The result of this war is basically that White got destroyed, as it
today is a shattered alliance of inactive accounts. H? won the
conflict but lost the game. They are completely uncontested as rank 1 and all
conflict they are going to have is someone bored with the game and want to
suicide. This is even a joke between some of the goonies players. “Just attack
H? and be done with the game”. Is this the mentality we really want to have in
Illyriad? Goonies, as rank 3, should be plotting and making strategically plans
on how to overcome H? and take the position as rank 1. And I assume that H? is
just trying to maximize their production and just fooling around, not making
defensive plans versus the closest ranking alliances. The reason for
why this situation is several but the primary reason is: it is all or nothing. Win
everything or loose everything. A failed or successful attack results in that
the losing army loses EVERYTHING. There is no between. No attacks that result
in retreats. Your attack will either destroy the enemy or be destroyed by the
enemy. And then, the question is, what is the price if one win? The price is
that you are going to spend less time rebuilding then the attacker, some
experience for your commander/commanders and some resources perhaps. That’s it
and it isn’t an incentive at all for fighting. 2.2 Siege,
losing even more This is
probably the most idiotic thing ever implemented in Illyriad (and many other
games). I cannot, in any perspective, understand why this ‘feature’ is
implemented. In its current form, it is nothing but destructive to the game. The
ability to siege someone and completely destroy a city only creates a mentality
of extreme caution and conservative gameplay. Alliances and players goes to
great length to avoid conflict, creates confederations and naps with everything.
Illyriad is a
game that is centred on conflict, yet it punish the loser(and sometimes the
winner) to such a degree that few people dares to do it. The risk isn’t even
close to the gains and this must be fixed if you, the developers, want to
create a game which people actually plays. 2.3 Conclusion
and suggestions There must
always be a risk and a cost for losing a conflict, but the price cannot be
annihilation. Also, there must also be an incentive for having a conflict and
winning it. Experience for your commander and resources are not enough. Going
to post some suggestions on how to deal with it: Attacker: When
attacking, an option of retreat should be made possible ( 0 – 60% ). When
fighting and your numbers reach the % given, they retreat. A few more % should
be added as the forces are trying to retreat, but this gives the possibility to
fight another day. And if the battle didn’t go as expected, one doesn’t have to
loose everything. One should never, even if one wishes, loose more then 60% of
its units. Defender: Defender should
never lose 100% of its army and it should always have advantage on the
attacker. They know the area and they may have the fortifications. Even if the
attacker wins, the defender should never lose more then 50% or so of its army. Siege: I do not
possess particular much knowledge of how the siege works. But I would suggest
that a player who has been sieged and lost, should be able to have his city
fully operational in approximately two weeks. Say that buildings gets repaired
and it will take X amount of time per each building, depending on its type and
level. A low level player might be back on his feets within a few days, but a
high level player might need two weeks to recuperate. Two weeks might sound
little, but consider that most of his troops is gone and that is two weeks
without development. So it may still take up to a month before completely
recovered. General: Honor, glory
and fame! Being a country that puts high value on the great man and woman
should also be awarded as such. While opposite should be paying for their bad
manners! Meaning, there should be a honor variable, that gives advantages or
disadvantages, depending on ones playstyle. A player who constantly attacks
same player, which is nothing but a small, peaceful and quite town should be
awarded as the coward he is. Low reputation with the council of Illyriad for
its foul acts and for desecrating this beautiful world, however, the dark lord
of naughtiness who feeds on the suffering on innocents rewards his servants
with wicked power of the darkness. Meaning: There
must be more incentive for the players to interact in conflict with each
others! Glory and fame, in different way, is usually a great way of
accomplishing this. This is also for conflict between players, not between
players and NPCs, but the NPC’s should react to players actions. And this will benefit the developers of
Illyriad, as it will keep players in the game, even when suffered a defeat in
war. Not as it is now, where the loser has to restart completely (which is
going to make them leave). It will also be more attractive to new players. But the
extreme risk of conflict MUST go, or Illyriad will. I shall
continue with next part when I have time. |
Posted By: gigi
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 11:52
Are you kidding me... HM, you guys must be bored to death now that White is gone. Also, the Good Company(Black) has retained some of the most active players against H? and you very well know that. Just because there are worse games out there doesn't mean there is no space for improvement. I will never start rebuilding a lost city. It is way boring to do it even now... Did the game benefit from White leaving (even if Diablito is a complete freak of nature)? No. GMs lost lots of paying players. H? is also not using prestige the same way you guys did before. |
Posted By: Thexion
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 13:13
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I think most important difference in this game compared to travian for example is that there is no for now ultimate goal (victory in the server) that people should fight to get the highest rank. If there would be alliances would quite fast combine against H? and so on. Anyway I don't think I would play this game if it would be so. Because it makes the game very ruthless against smaller players and you would need to play 24/7 or/and use lot of cash to get big. Anyway there should be some goals and concrete things where you can compete and reasons to fight like resources. Otherwise people get bored and don't see reasons to continue. If Factions, Trade and crafting are done right in this game I think they can offer those reasons also there should be more quests and much interesting ones like military quests. |
Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 16:15
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I think war is the essential gameoption in a game based on barracks, producing weapons etc, that all would be senseless without war. Second, this thread is quite paradox, as it wants ways to win the game, and at the same time prevent other players from loosing (which doesn't work IMO). Third, we shouldn't think of white as the poor victim forced to quit the game, as I think White caused more players to stop playing than any other alliance. Finally, I'm proud of Illyriad trying to be a realistic game, where you can loose, but aren't reduced to fulfill quest, or achive some goals like reaching some Pop, or so. With the new elements added in next months, I think it will get even more real, with each player having different goals, style and tactics, so people will have to work together to get it all (another point quite different to other games). I'm in a big alliance myself, and everyone I talked to has fun building citys, chatting, and sometimes even going to war and risk loosing the game  , That's how life goes.I myself don't use prestige, exept that one granted by the GM's - THX  - and don't play 24/7 but in a fine ally I'm able to compete with those who do, and that's just another reason to play Illyriad.So, most of those points of criticism above are for other players the main reasons to play! Just to stop the series of negative statements above  Thanks to GM's and programmers and background staff.... for creating such a fine game, and even improving it every day  |
Posted By: Noryasha Grunk
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 17:05
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I moved this post to its own thread: See, "Sieging Cities" |
Posted By: Larry
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 17:15
| I left because of RL and burnout (in part cause I'm not that into browser games in the first place), and I can say that that's the same for many in WHITE. |
Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 17:23
(I apologize to anyone who dislikes my quoting frenzy. I'm an active poster on another forum and it's common for us to break posts down like this. Though I've noticed not many people here do it.)
It's not that players shouldn't lose, it's that players shouldn't lose **everything**. I don't mind destroying a players army but often if I'm aware that my alliance is destroying an active players city I'll send him a message apologizing. I feel bad about it because I honestly believe losing everything is too harsh.
I'm not saying that no one likes to build their city, even I used to enjoy it but after awhile it gets old. If I wanted to do nothing but build cities I'd play Sim City.
Then you still agree that war demoralizing players and hurts the game then?
Just because you don't agree with the statements above doesn't mean their wrong. The entire point of a suggestions forum is to criticize either the lack of something or the way something currently works. |
Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 17:37
I find this argument of what players are searching for quite dull. Players are searching for fun. If you're not searching for fun I have no idea what you're doing here. White obviously found what they were looking for because if they hadn't why on earth would they have invested so much time (and potentially money) into a game they weren't interested in? If you didn't like this game, would you have played it for as long as you have? You'd be lying if you said yes. White played the game for as long as they did because they must have enjoyed something about it. Which means they quit because of something that happened in game not because they didn't get what they were looking for in it. Like I said, it's not some update or family matter that drove them away(Unless everyone in White was all part of the same family), it was the war with Harmless.
You're not seriously suggesting that everyone from White quit are you? And while some players from Black have rebuilt you can't deny that the Good Company is much smaller than Black was. |
Posted By: Larry
Date Posted: 19 Sep 2010 at 21:12
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I really enjoy all of the uninformed speculation about the effect of war on white's players... EDIT: And look, in response to the idea that certain individuals find it unsettling that a player can lose essentially everything, all that can really be said is that concept is one of the core ideas behind this game. Just like eve (for those who play that). There are plenty of other games that are far more gentle to the players, just because you happen to not enjoy that doesn't mean the rest of us dont. I don't intend to sound irritable but you're asking for a fundamental change in this game's entire premise. |
Posted By: Jargas
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 03:22
I don't think the majority of posters on this topic are bagging on Illyriad as a whole. I think for the most part we are trying to find solutions to a potentially game-ending problem in it's mechanics. I am all for war, and crippling your enemy. But I also think something should be done about how much they should be crippled. It has the potential to drive people away, I don' think there is any doubt in that. What we, as a Illyriad player whole need to do, is help give ideas (as Beengalas did) to the devs on ways to keep this from happening. I for one, would like to see Illyriad stick around. Ideas: 1. Give us, the players, something that we can hold onto. a. Original, or main town cannot be sieged and taken. b. Alliance ownership, or faction, of claimed territories are the main targets of warfare. Losing these would be far more acceptable than losing months worth of work on a town. I was going to try and go a little more in depth, but time caught up to me. I'm sure with every ones help we can give the devs plenty of food for thought. ------------- Jargas Bargnothaltros Officer of Dark Blight Resident of The Underdark |
Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 04:28
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Ok the problem is that we need siege to be devastating but not game ending, what if we changed it so that cities could be forcefully moved but only partially destroyed. Ie military buildings and trade, mage tower, consulate etc can all be destroyed. However resource production buildings, storehouse, flour mill etc cannot be harmed. So loosing a siege will destroy a players ability to interact with the wider world for a short time. Winning a siege could mean that player protection was put over that player for a fortnight, the town is shifted and troop production is disabled for a week. This would be very very painful however certainly not game ending. |
Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 04:34
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Actually, I'd say the vast majority of players active in these forums aren't complaining at all. And when people leave without complaining, it more often points to either usability issues or discovery of a complete disinterest in the whole concept, rather than any problems with specific design of this particular game. As I've said before, browser games are not for the impatient. Harmless had our own players who left because of this. We couldn't make exciting things happen quickly or often enough to keep them interested, or wouldn't stir up chaos, so they quit--generally without even trying other bigger or smaller/agile alliances. If you make things easier to gain or harder to lose, you're tampering with matters that have sweeping consequences. If anything, you're more likely to encourage despair and feelings of hopelessness because the reduced risk of loss/consequence promotes chaos while the aggregate result trends even more toward stalemate in a sea of nondescript accounts unworthy of note or titles of accomplishment. If this were a real society, a balance of 99% middle class white collar workers would be awesome, yet still boring. Since this isn't a real society, it's just boring. |
Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 09:34
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We're not complaining about the game because we haven't lost our cities yet.
I don't think that changing the mechanics so that it'd be very difficult to loose would neccessarily make things boring. I think what's being suggested is that rather than making it so we loose everything or gain nothing the balance should be augmented so that we can make significant lossess but not total lossess yet it is easier for these lossess to occure. If you can loose your mage tower, consulate, marketplace, barracks, docks, shipyard, walls as well as a week of troop production this is a very significant loss. Especially if relocation of your town is involved. Yet it is not certain that this loss will cause a player to quit the game.
HM can you honestly say that if all the largest alliances suddenly decided to gang up on H? causing you to loose your 2 largest cities that you wouldn't be tempted in the slightest to quit the game?
Saying that White quit the game because they couldn't be the dominant force may be true for some players yet i'm sure a large numbers quit merely because they either lost towns, or most of their friends quit the game due to lost towns.
|
Posted By: Thexion
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 14:12
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I think That possibility of loosing cities totally is not so bad thing it makes things more interesting. Although I think there should be way(s) to wage and win war so that you could get gain by other means than simply destruction of enemies. Example remodeling raid so that it would be useful again, perhaps so that it would also get part of advanced resources because it is surprise but it would work only if it would Also perhaps full attacks could kill also diplomatic units least partially. Also upgrading of walls against siege with techs or additional buildings, so sieges would take even longer would make people who are afraid of sieges could feel safer. White should have known to stop the war when they had the chance.. but losing wars is always demoralizing especially if there is no long term goals other than wage that war. |
Posted By: Larry
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 16:20
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White quit because it consisted of 90% Eve Online players OK? Diablito gathered a bunch of his fellow capsuleers in Eve and was like "Hey, there's this cool new browser game we should all check out, lets see if we can shake things up!" and a bunch of us (many of whom had never played a game like this) decided to follow him and check it out. We played hard for months, fighting H was an awesome time, they gave us a solid run for the money. Eventually we began to burn out because this really just wasn't the kind of game most of us prefer. We're from Eve, and while there similarities in some of the ideology behind Eve and Illyriad they're fundamentally different games, and Illyriad is a game that just didn't fit for many of us. In fact it could be almost said that we left not because we LOST cities (which we did, I'm not implying victory here) but because we were DESTROYing cities (More Ni than H). Do you have any idea how much effort it took to coordinate 70+ armies into 4 different sieges back in the days when the sieging army had to get there first? The spreadsheets would have made God himself cringe. We executed dozens of sieges and planned 5 times that many. And then mix defending from sieges prior to sally forth. It was exhausting, it was taking tons of time, Selon Far had a job to do and I went to college. Now that that's out of the way, it'd be awesome if you guys could stop hijacking the story of WHITE to further your own political ends given your utter ignorance of who we were, what we did, and why many of us left.
|
Posted By: CranK
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 18:51
Yes, the active players from black has started a new allaince. I joined this alliance because there wasn't much fun in black anymore. Yes, White has used us against you guys and we loved this war because it had some action in the game. But after the big defeat White left the game and alot of black members did also. I joined Good Company to get away from this H? war. We have our own goals in this game now and don't have a mother allaince like White telling us what to do. But now I got a mail from KP that some of the old black members need punshment and can expect that very soon. Can't you guys just leave this thing with Black alone? I joined a other allaince because I wanted to get away from reputation that White/Black had. If I was planning to continous this war with H? I wouldn't have left the Black company. But I did, I don't feel like suiciding against H? wich was always the case. Now H? is going after these old Black members because they are on their ''sh*t-list''. I know I also -might- be on that sh*t list. But do you really think its nessesery to go after me or the other old Black members with a dominating alliance like Harmless?... |
Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 21:10
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1) *You* did not receive a message from me - unless you wish to admit being the alt of Laccy, which would be inconvenient for him given that he already has an alt. 2) If you wanted to get away from the war then you needed to contact H? Running away to another alliance does not escape you from the consequences of your actions. 3) It was all very fun for you while you were dominating noob players in H? that were a fraction of your size and boasting/laughing in alliance chat about your successes. But it's not so much fun now you're under the threat of being on the other side of things... So, let me sum up - no apology, no attempt to offer compensation or even communicate, just run away and stick your head in the sand and hope we forget and when that fails throw in a couple of insinuations and a whiny attempt to gather public opinion. Lol... |
Posted By: -hypocritical-
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 21:18
| keep it off the public forums :) if you want to talk there is a mail option besides this isn't even a war thread, it's a suggestion :P of sorts |
Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 21:47
I'm glad at least some of you are still around enough to set the record straight. |
Posted By: Kumomoto
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2010 at 22:26
You pegged it, Brids. Many (but by all means not all) White players really enjoyed something in Illyriad. They enjoyed being the "Bad Guy". Heck, it was even in Diabilito's original advertisment in the Eve forums to join his alliance that he'd show folks how to metagame and be brutal.
So these White players, many of whom are total carebears in Eve (and therefore sit around mining or doing other such tedious tasks all day in Eve) wanted to be the bully for once instead of being bullied. They joined White, Diablito quickly found them a target and they happily pounded all the newbie H? players. H? had a few of those newbies quit. It takes a while to organize and you can't protect all your newbies all the time. But organize we did, and suddenly, instead of being the bully, these select White players were getting their noses broken.
The thing they enjoyed, Brids, was the bullying, and when they couldn't do it anymore, they emoraged, threw their toys out of the pram and quit. Did it hurt the game? Yes. Could they have stayed on and negotiated a peace because, frankly, war is expensive and tough and it was hurting H? also, absolutely. Instead they chose to quit.
H? is excited about the new maps and is developing a variety of strategies to have fun with the upcoming releases. We, by no means, feel that we are invincible or unbeatable as an alliance. Quite the opposite. I expect other alliances to have the same population as H? within a few months. And then this perception will, hopefully, go away.
This game is totally up for grabs. I just wish our biggest competitor had had more staying power. No worries, the game goes on and, quite frankly, some of the up and coming alliances seem far more impressive than White ever did...
|
Posted By: CranK
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 00:16
1. Yes you are right, *I* didn't got this mail from you. 2. You are right on this point too, It might have been smart to contact H?. But personally I don't think that whould have been a big diferents if you allraidy planned to punish me for my actions. 3. Donination noobs? LOL? The only H? members I attacked that wasn't up to my size was Emanem.. Only because I wanted to give our small members a break from to continous attacks from him. As you also know, and laughed about on chat, it took me about 3 or 4 days to get there. Enough time for him to place his military units and resources in a safe place. NOTHING was distroyed and NOTHING was stolen. I just gave our small members a break from his attacks. If you can name 1 other H? members that I attacked (exept for Llyorn, who was alot bigger than me at that time) please tell me. And I didn't want a public opinion about this all, I just wanted to give my own opinion on what was said here. |
Posted By: gigi
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 01:02
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KP you must be bored and I am sure that attacking defenseless White targets like Wuzzel is boring. I am sure you are after me, too. And boy can't wait for you guys to visit north-west. But just refresh my memory. After I left Black I setup CowCorp in the middle of the map and was trading cows for horses and books with Waylander. You probably know that. Have you seen all the trades and gifts I have given to people? Kumomoto (your leader) definitely took a 40 saddle for 1 gold trade. You guys are big enough and well-off than most others. I am sure you don't even need my stuff, but others do and that's what I have been doing. Anyway, it is just shocking how everyone is scared of H?. You seem to be running a nice dictatorship here. I see how Goon ask you for permission to do something and other big players are unwilling to move because "H? hates interference". Every empire goes down eventually, it is all a matter of time. You are just searching for an excuse to move your armies. If compensation you are after, please, name it here in the forum. Let Illyriad know what Good players owe H?: I will take care of it as I have enough production to handle it. Let's see if this is what you really want. |
Posted By: KarL Aegis
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 01:05
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Seige is something done to players we dont want anymore, or we want their city for ourselves.
If you don't like the consquences of war, then you make friends by trading alot. Or be a nice guy on global or something. and its not like a seige is unbeatable. You have things called "stratagems" that make war more interesting. If you dont want a win all/lose all use the raid option. It chips away at an army so its easier to make the final push against that player. ------------- I am not amused. |
Posted By: Laccy
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 01:25
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Originally posted by Larry White quit because...it was exhausting, it was taking tons of time, Selon Far had a job to do and I went to college. Now
that that's out of the way, it'd be awesome if you guys could stop
hijacking the story of WHITE to further your own political ends given
your utter ignorance of who we were, what we did, and why many of us
left.
I'm glad at least some of you are still around enough to set the record straight.Hear hear. edit: sorry, i misinserted the quote posts |
Posted By: KarL Aegis
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 02:34
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Was this thread about the cost-benefit ratio of war or how WHITE and H? went to war with eachother?
Money makes the world go round people! Think about economics. If you get rid of a player that steals from you, you benefit in the long run. If you're the agressor, you only benefit until you get seiged to the ground.
Makes war seem simple.
Quit whining. ------------- I am not amused. |
Posted By: Grunvagr
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 02:50
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I want to add one thing. The ability to siege is important and should always remain in the game. Here's why: I played another game similar (but far inferior) to Illyriad. But in that game, you could not siege anyone. You could only destroy their troops and loot their towns. Well, I eventually realized that players could simply hide their resources, ship them town to town, and retreat their armies and there was no way for me to punish them. So I quit that game because I was annoyed there was no feature to 'truly kick ass'. I felt like it was too carebear. And it was frustrating when trash talking started and there was no way to really settle it. While a fine line has to be drawn, (slower sieges make sense because the option TO knock people out of the game is there but it should also take time so allies or others can defend the person in jeopardy), the ability to siege should never be removed. Or players might quit -- looking for a more satisfying fight elsewhere. my 2 cents |
Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 04:43
I apologize. That was not the story that I had heard.
This could actually work. It would stop players from moving resources and troops from one city to another to protect them and it would still be a blow to the player however it wouldn't kick them back to the very start of the game either.
Perhaps the idea above combined with this idea. Your main city can't be destroyed but your barracks, mage tower, consulate, etc, in your main city could be. Lastly, for all those who are arguing about H? and White please go here: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/the-bitter-sea_forum14.html The sub-forum exists for a reason people... |
Posted By: Kumomoto
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 15:21
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The problem with making original towns unconquerable/unrazable is that you can't knock someone out of your area. It is also totally unrealistic. Here you can basically destroy them, thoroughly wipe out their army, have your troops basically using their castle as a latrine and you can't make them go away?
One thing that folks aren't necessarily focusing on is that when your capital gets relocated, you do NOT lose your research. The time limiting factor for building a city up is the research (given unlimited prestige). Therefore, you could really quickly rebuild a city if you have all the research...
As someone said above, the game would not be fun without consequences and risk. That's what makes people care about their actions...
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Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 15:54
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Another important detail of note is that if you already have research, you get its benefits right away. For example, having already researched heavy cavalry, you can start producing it at your new location as soon as you have a level 1 barracks. Your top-level killing/seeking runes are fully capable with a level 1 mage tower, you can produce advanced resource structures and resource-boosting structures right away, and so on. As a result you can also skip investment into the library and buy cheap low-level warehouse upgrades while the storehouse is also at low levels, so your construction time and raw materials can be more heavily focused on rebuilding infrastructure as well. Not only do you return to a useful state much earlier in the rebuild process, you also have drastically reduced rebuild time even without even without prestige, because you can pour a greater percentage of your output into getting back to large-scale operation earlier in the overall rebuilding process. |
Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 15:59
Having access to a large source of resources anytime doesn't hurt either... |
Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 18:05
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Keeping your research after your last town is destroyed is nice, but I see one glitch in this concept. Let's say you have 3 towns, one of which has all research, and you had just built your 3rd town which has no research at all when suddenly you find yourself in a war that quickly goes bad for you (say you attacked H? |
). They want to hurt you bad so all they have to do is destroy your largest towns first leaving you with the small town with no research last. Once that town is destroyed, you reset but without any research. Unless that's not how it really works, sounds to me like your better off just creating a new account.Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 21:42
I'm pretty sure this is how it works, as our alliance has done this to people that really annoyed us before.
Can we please keep the "unrealistic" argument out of here? I don't think it's realistic that elves and orcs and dwarves are running around the map or that an entire city can be constructed in a few months time or that I can cast a magic spell that kills your livestock but you don't hear anyone complaining about that. It's a game, the realism argument doesn't work. Alright, so why not make it so they're still moved across the map but they still don't lose everything? I'm sure something can be done that will skill have risks and consequences but not completely destroy all of a players hard work? And once again I'd like to point that people generally only buy prestige when at war, so large consequences that make people fear war and act over cautiously doesn't help the game. |
Posted By: Kumomoto
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 21:46
I like the idea of moving them without destroying all their buildings, but destroying some meaningful percentage of their buildings... That should satisfy the need to remove them from your area...
And what do you mean Orcs aren't realistic? When's the last time you watched professional wrestling?
And magic? My wife casts vicious blights on me regularly. She's particularly fond of Sharp Frost... ;)
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Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2010 at 22:47
| No we can't disregard arguments around realism. Just because we're in a fantasy setting doesn't mean we can throw sensibility to the wind, and "realistic" behavior is also more predictable, easier to learn, and a safer, stable foundation for designing game mechanics. |
Posted By: Larry
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 03:58
| Furthermore [on the subject of realism] as I understand it a fair bit of effort went into the research behind the various buildings to mimic historical medieval Europe. This is particularly true if one bothers to read the various descriptions on sovereignty technologies, they all match up with reality most impressively. |
Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 05:57
| I have to say I do agree that making the capital city invulnerable is a bit much. However I don't see that my idea of allowing all the interactive buildings to be destroyed will make illyriad like all the other annoying and "inferior" simmilar games. If once a month a player is unable to interact with the wider world from a town they're either going to quit, or with the new ability to move locations, will elect to move their town. A successfull siege could also give 50% of all resources within that town and currently travelling to that town to the siegeing town as well as the destruction of all military and diplomatic units from that city. |
Posted By: bartimeus
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 06:39
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I read in another thread something about moving your entire city after unsettling it so it becomes a moving campment. Why not make the loser of the batlle become forced to become instantly unsettled (everyone escapes, becomes war refugies, but not everything is taken away with them because they didn't have time to pack up. the attacker would be able to keep whatever is left behind.) ------------- Bartimeus, your very best friend. |
Posted By: Special One
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 11:02
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Hi, I am SpecialOne, one of H?-White war victims. I had 3 towns at that time and H? destroyed 2 of my towns and take the last. Is it hurt? Yes, it is really hurts. So, based on my experience, I want to offer another solution for this. When a city is attacked and some building are destroyed. We don't need to build this buildings with the same amount of resources and time like before, we need only half of them. For example: lets say I have barrack level 19. I got attacked and my barrack level down to level 10. Since my highest level for that barrack was 19, when I upgrade my barrack from level 10 to level 19, I only need half of resources and time required. This will help someone to recover faster. If you think 50% discount is too much, we can change it to 35% discount. How if a city is completely destroyed? The owner will have a template of destroyed city. For example: I have 2 cities, let say it's name is Special City and Lake City. One of my city, Lake City is completely destroyed. I will have a template of maximum building level and research of this city. When I build a new city, server give me option, to build a city based on Lake City or from scratch. If I choose from scratch, then it will be a usual new city. If I choose Lakel City, then I will get all research from my destroyed Lake City instantly and maximum building level. If my old Lake City has level 19 barrack before, then in my new Lake City, I can build barrack from level 1 to level 19 with only half of resources and time required. For research, I have all research transferred from my old Lake City to my new Lake City. If I already use my destroyed template city, of course I can not use it again for my next new city. About how this completely destroyed city affect prestige, frankly speaking, my personal experience make me think again before buying prestige. At that time, I start planning to buy prestige, "fortunately", before I do that, H? attack and destroyed all my towns. I cancel my intention to buy prestige, because I think why I spend real money if all gain I get from that real money can be destroyed in just few days and nothing left. But, this is my thought, maybe other players still don't mind to buy prestige again although their city is destroyed. |
Posted By: lep
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 21:36
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Best suggestion so far from game-play point of view. Allows a player to be knocked out of a strategic spot or out of the area they were annoying to the attacker or attacker's friends.
Devastating to the loser but still plenty advantage over a brand new starting place to make it worth staying on for. |
Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 22:56
I like this idea.
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Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 23 Sep 2010 at 23:11
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So, the capital/last city is not conquerable? |
Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 24 Sep 2010 at 00:01
Current functionality is that the player is relocated to another spot with a zero score city but all their research. |
Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 24 Sep 2010 at 01:43
Yea, well aware of that. Just in context of the idea. |
Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 24 Sep 2010 at 18:46
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It would be conquerable (if I got Bartimäus right), but people will be
able to rescue some sorts of resources and/or even parts of buildings...
or something like that... additional to the research already done (like
it is now, perhaps parts of the research additional to the rest). I like this idea, but until pathfinding is on, I think it's just a addition to the actual method. With pathfinding, there could be mobile foundries, nomadic cattle ranchers, driving bookshops.... moving around until they find a nice place to settle. The advantage of being mobile would have some disadvantages like having no city wall (perhaps caravans could square up for defense).... Just adding a few ideas |
Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 25 Sep 2010 at 23:58
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Just wanted to say that we're all reading this thread with *a lot* of interest. There are two different and concurrent/related goals here. 1. We don't want much smaller players to be completely wiped off the map/demoralised/dispirited/emoragequitting because they simply fell foul of the neighbourhood bully 2. We think it's wrong that a player who has invested [insert number of months here] into the game can lose pretty much *everything* in a few short days. It's tempting to respond that "Well, they could always seek a diplomatic solution" etc, and we broadly agree with this sentiment. The thing is, though, that we currently have many powerful alliances in the game who largely have the game's best interests in mind; and that's not always going to be the case, or the case for future servers. We do get Petitions from players who are quitting the game, and eloquently describe why. The most saddening one I've had was from a < 2 weeks old Orc RP'er who was sieged simply because some siege-capable "big player" took umbrage at his use of "Orc-speak" in global chat. There is a need for some game-rule-based soution that tries to preserve these things. The first thing to say is that - whatever the solution is - it will *only* effect Siege Encampments. We're not looking at limiting spells, diplomatic attacks, regular attacks or even Limited (Direct) Siege attacks. It's only Siege Encampments that are under discussion here. We initially thought we had a solution, which we mentioned briefly in The Newness thread as follows: "STANDINGS AND KING's FAVOUR - A system for protecting new players, limiting siege attacks." I know we gave no real info on this concept, so.. the idea here was a system whereby players (and alliances) would have a 'relationship score' with each other and that score was influenced by attacks (or lack of attacks). You'd earn (eg) -1 point for theft, and -2 points for sabotage (although the points would be nuanced by size differential between players, and a whole lot of other variables) The idea was that when the relationship score reached a certain point, then the wounded party would have "Siege" enabled, and once a "pound of flesh" had been extracted, then Siege would be disabled. We liked the idea for a while, but then realised that - actually - this forces the game design team to proscribe a "moral equivalency" to player actions (ie Player 1's sabotage of A building is worth 27 of Player 2's thefts which is worth 146 of Player 3's Caravan Kickings etc). As an idea, this is seriously wrong and flawed, and - after suitable reflection - we've squashed it. Players should be able to ascribe their own levels of outrage to the events that happen to them. But we do still have to consider what is "suitable retribution" against another player; and where the game rules should step in to prevent, or help prevent, a player's utter destruction. The fact is, as game players ourselces, we know the most compelling content that any game can produce is the content the players produce themselves. Every time a forum thread opens with "Player 1 did X bad things to me" followed by "Yeah, well, Player 2 did Y bad things first", the game design team gets moist. I kid you not. Player emotions are far more compelling than any game designers' artificial constructs, and what we want to concentrate on are the things that enable (or highlight) more player involvement in the *human* realm. So. We're going to move slowly towards a solution, in some baby steps. Our first will probably consist of a (prominent, Herald-based) overview of all the current Sieges, as well as a player-profile "Sieges This Player Is Currently Attending" kind of link. We know there are enmities between players, and sometimes simply the knowledge that player X is sieging someone would be enough to get another player/alliance involved because of their history. Our second is that we're looking at some "Help Me, I'm under Siege!" button with some text fields for freetext "Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope"-style messages - and these 'pleas for help' would be visible to the entire world somewhere. Sure, they're potentially manipulative - but isn't that the whole point here? Our third (and one that's been mentioned before quite often) is that we will put together some kind of Mercenaries For Hire interface, so players can bring other players or alliances in to help defend / counter-attack. We'll see how these changes go first, before introducing any more radical ones. But we do think there's things that need changing for sure. Anyway, please continue on with this thread, it's very informative to us! Best, SC |
Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 06:14
| w.r.t. your second idea. I cross-posted something a while back from the H? forums to the effect that sieges ought to spread news in a ripple effect - a lone person on a horse arriving at a nearby city (cities) stating that they were under attack for example. |
Posted By: KarL Aegis
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 17:51
+1
As far as I care, seiges are fair game for anyone to attack. If you are seiging someone, you should be prepared for any number of people trying to wipe you out. Your army isnt stuck behind a wall, after all. Easy prey, tons of experience and a chance to weaken an entire allaince. ------------- I am not amused. |
Posted By: Grunvagr
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 18:10
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I think the best solution for all of this is simple. Leave sieging as is, but make restarting a heck of a lot faster. The game is slow initially. Getting resources is brutally slow, and it simply takes time - weeks, months, to get your foot in the door. Alliances can help a lot, however, with supplies etc. To remove sieging from the game or in some ways, lessening the ability to KILL, KNOCK OUT, or effectively go all-out and wipe a player HAS to remain in the game. Otherwise the game is dull because nothing is valuable unless it can be lost. Nothing is valuable and really meaningful unless it can be lost. Here's the core problem, that I see. Restarting if you get demolished is just too long. It takes too long to quickly get back on your feet. Retaining your technology is good, but the amount of time and the lack of resources to rebuild is tough. So too is having to be online every 5 to 10 mins to queue up buildings since lev 1-3 buildings need to be ordered so often. SOLUTION? Have a system where restarting is a lot faster and more fun. It can involve npcs, perhaps the same npc that ships you supplies after the tutorial now ships you more materials. Perhaps even consider a larger building queue. (the ability to maybe queue up FOUR buildings instead of 2 at a time). Basically, leaving sieging as is is crucial to the game being ' dangerous and cool '. But try to find ways to make restarting fun and exciting. It's not really fun and exciting for a player who used to have 4 towns, to have to restart. Ways to quickly get him back to 2 towns is great and should be the focus of ideas. -npc's help the new town with resources -consider temporarily expanding the building queues to 3 or 4, instead of just 2 NOTE: This would ONLY impact players who were destroyed and who were relocated with a 0 pop town and all their tech. Find ways to speed THOSE particular players back into the game. |
Posted By: Grunvagr
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 18:18
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I would have edited this part on, but I feel it deserves a separate post. Consider this option as well: Top players can start to be overwhelmed with the micromanagement of their towns as they get LOTS of towns. Players who are knocked out of the game (or even new players to the game) are tremendously excited but are slowed tremendously by the lack of resources and the pace of the game (at first). What if you introduced some system where a player could be governor of another player's Cities? Example: Player A is a long-time player with 6 villages. He can choose to appoint a player as his governor. This player gets control of ONE of his cities. Now this works great! He can learn from the veteran player, he can get resources shipped to him, etc. And the veteran player doesn't have to manage another town, lessening his burden in a sense, though keeping his overall power. Who can be governors? Players who have only ONE town of their own. Or, players who have been destroyed and only have 1 town left. This way, if alliances are at war and someone gets knocked out, a player who lost all his towns can still jump right back in the game by controlling a town as a governor, while he nurses his own demolished empire back up. It would seem to solve many problems: -makes the game easier to manage for longtime veterans who have lots of towns to manage -makes the game fun for new players, especially being taken under the wing of veteran players / alliances. Not only do they learn the game faster, have questions answered and likely get supplies to build, but they feel community connections right away -gives players who get destroyed a reason to not get demoralized and quit the game. Anyways, I hope these ideas give the GMs some ideas. Helluva game, keep it up. -Grun |
Posted By: bartimeus
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 20:21
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I'm not saying your idea of governor is bad, I actually like it very much. But; - Aren't big players going to be affraied of having noobs mess up with their cities? (obviously this doesn't apply for brocken down players, as they probably have the experience) I know I would be affraid. (when i took up someone's account to make my second account, It was only 500 or 600 pop higher than my own, but it took me about 1 week to familliarise myself with it because that player played in a very different way. during that time I sort of screwed up everything). Maybe the owner could still be able to manage his town so as to correct any error the governor could make. adding a city notepad ingame would be great for gov-owner communication (could also be used for account sitting). - Big players dont really have that many cities. I think it maxes out at around 10 city. (but implementing this would perhaps allow the dev to lower the pop requirement) With 2 account, that makes 20 towns which I have to admit must be time consuming... - I think the 1 town limit to be governor is too low... Make more around 3 or 4, or make no limit at all (Or governor must have less town than the owner). The second town comes very quicly, especialy if you can send stuff from a fully developed city. and a player used to having 6 city migth still quit if he can only be governor when he has 1 city, Or he could (and this is far worse) postpone the settling of his second city. - To prevent use of this function as a city sitting fonction (account sitting has a limited amount of days per years) make it that the governor can only use this city if the owner loged on in the last 30 hours... ------------- Bartimeus, your very best friend. |
Posted By: Grunvagr
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 20:56
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It would be optional. Nobody needs governors if they don't want to. I just see it as a fun option to solve a key problem: How do you keep the game fun? Well, wars are fun. And winning wars is pure satisfaction, so removing that would suck. (my opinion) But being sent to square one is brutal. How do you keep players playing, and willing to rebuild? - give em something to do as governors of an ally (friends) town - or give total noobs a reason to be taken under the wing of veterans who teach em stuff It's a rough idea. The staff could take it in any direction they'd want... but it could solve some concern areas in a fun way. And the # of governors you can appoint or the fine details are up for discussion. The core idea though, seems solid. (as for players: the only real annoying thing would be a player building stuff in places you normally don't build them. If for instance someone lays all their towns out the same way with the buildings in exactly the same spot - it will be annoying to have a tavern where the barracks are, barracks where the library usually is, etc. so perhaps when a governor resigns/quits and the owner controls it again, he can choose where to relocate the buildings, that's all. But if a player had a million thieves and he wants a million troops, well too bad, disband em :P ) |
Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 21:20
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I very much like and prefer the idea of boosting restart speed over crippling ability to finish off an enemy. There are very substantial reasons for wanting the latter, including privacy when Fog of War takes effect and enjoying a future gaming experience without bumping into "distasteful" personalities/recurring disruptions in your own neighborhood. But it is perfectly fine to let a restarting player's first city get quickly back to a point where he can do things. It is largely becoming more acceptable because of the chaos injected into player location and the loss of distinction between old kingdoms and frontier territory. |
Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 21:48
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What if players could actually gift cities to other players. Depending on who the player was there are some players i'd be willing to gift my 3rd or second city to in order to keep them in the game. Obviously this would only be allowed for players who had lost towns to siege, and max population would need to be recorded so that players couldn't start a new accout siege it and then gift their secound city and suddenly be able to build 5 cities. Perhaps a gift cannott exceed your previouse largest town
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Posted By: Ryuuku
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 22:35
+1,000,000 As long as this remains foremost as a goal, this game can only get better and better. The only reasons to play are the friends and foes that you encounter and can interact with. The players make the game.
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Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 22:56
Thank you for saying this. Even though I knew that by now a GM had probably read this thread it means a lot for you to say it. =) In regards to the idea of speeding up a players city to get them back on their feet, I think it's a brilliant idea. A lot of people seem to like siege and while I still think it's a bit over powered this idea allows them to keep it the way it is while still helping to keep a player motivated to keep going. Maybe they could revive a speed boost for a certain amount of time. Something like 30% building reduction time and maybe they could be given a bit more resources to start out with than normal. The only problem is how would it be given? If it simply started to take effect as soon as the players last city has been destroyed and lasted, lets just say 3 days, it could kind of suck if you were going on vacation that day or had a heavy work load or weren't able to spend as much time as you'd like to make the bonus worth while. I suppose it could be population based, so once the player reached 750 pop or something it would stop. |
Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 22:57
| Even just starting with level 5 resource plots would make a huge difference. |
Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Date Posted: 26 Sep 2010 at 23:33
That's really not a bad idea at all - for every plot the player has over L5, they restart on L5 by default in their new city at the other end of the map. This idea definitely helps the small-mid sized players - though for big players not so much... As mentioned, I'm all in favour of supporting the whole range of human emotion - as this is what makes sandbox games tick: retribution, revenge, "just" wars, comeuppances, payback, good-samaritanism, protecting-the-underdog, nurturing, abandoning, betrayal, loyalty, etc etc etc. But equally I don't want players with months invested in the game to have their empires undone in hours/days, as that will ultimately foster a "Who's next? For your time has come" mentality. As mentioned earlier in this thread: We're fairly blessed on UK1 with a large number of alliances who want Illyriad to thrive and prosper, but that's by no means guaranteed for other servers when they arrive. We also need to change the current rule that sieged players "keep the technologies that the last city had" rule, as we've had some particularly vicious, rampaging siege parties that destroy the largest cities first, and save the smallest for last, knowing that the player resettles with the technology from his smallest and least developed city, and therefore gets practically nothing compared to their invested time. This will probably change to "resettling the player with *all* the technologies researched in his or her largest population city regardless of when it was destroyed (or possibly al the techs researched in all his or her cities prior to destruction)" to remove this as a particularly vindictive means of punishment. Anyway, as mentioned earlier, we'll take baby steps to provide consequences for full-on-sieges, which initially will take the form of reportage rather than intervention. One possible route we have in the future is Faction (NPC) intervention, and this might be worth exploring. Whatever the route is for us, it can't get in the way of the comment that Ryuuku quoted above with his "+1,000,000" addendum (tyvm btw Ryuuku). Despite my typo of "ourselves"  , that comment from me is pretty much the defining game philosophy of Illyriad. We don't want to be moral interventionists; we want to leave that to the players. We do, however, want to provide the players with sufficient tools to enable and inspire them to become interventionists. Best, SC |
Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 02:17
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Illyriad's social landscape and balance of order/chaos has been heavily influenced by early players but also by the underlying feel of the game mechanics. Both have worked together to build a community, and every community has its "norms." One can hope, therefore, that continued growth and new servers will have by default a predilection toward similar range and distribution of standard. This was a phenomenon very much on my mind in the early days, when I more actively promoted moral perspectives that tend to be underrepresented in games with anonymous participants. I sometimes wonder if my "great antagonist" didn't by design galvanize onlookers toward an attitude of respect for other players' accomplishments.  |
Posted By: ivyleaves
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 04:08
I almost forgot - this brought to mind the frustration of using the Herald to monitor military action. Most of the time, if you look at the coords for military actions, they involve npc spawns - very frustrating and useless to sift through, so that portion of the information becomes anti-information, at least to me. Having categories like Sieges, and limiting the Herald to pvp military operations, or having pvp in one category and pvf(action), with the faction named, in another category would be really, really nice. |
Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 09:00
3. Yay! Makes it easier. But more competition. The payout is probably going to suck though... People usually don't want to pay enough to cover the Allow this not just for siege defense, but the siege encampment too! 2. Easy 1 button press free help!? Boo! Bad for business. 1. Hmm... interesting, serves to polarize things. If you are going to list players in the siege camp, also list players in the siege defense. If player X or player from alliance Y is helping out in a siege encampment or siege defense. Player Z will want to join in the other side! Though, for small timers with little support like me, I will probably become a 'low risk' retribution target.... Seriously though, you guys need another thing 'worthy' enough for players/alliances to do mass coordinated battles over, that is not as destructive. (Yes, other then sieging factions too.) Perhaps the Faction Trade HUBs... can be fought over... 1. Alliances can takeover these HUBs, by force from Factions or other Alliances.... 2. The HUB will still be controlled by the factions/AI, but, the controlling alliance will acquire trade taxes. Also, access to goods otherwise reserved for 'friends'...? 3. Its up to the Alliance to protect it now... or at least foot the cost to protect it... don't expect any 'help' to be free in this case... Faction Capitals... Puppet Faction. (You could just go straight for the capital... if you can take the pushback...) Freeing a Faction Capital... an alliance that is 'friendly' with the Puppet Faction may declare a campaign to free the Faction. The more friendly the alliance is with the faction, the more of the Puppet Faction reinforces the campaigners or at least 'do nothing' instead of helping to defend the Faction Capital. Could also be determined by how much they hate the puppeteer alliance... which should be very hard to fix... Or perhaps the Faction may try to free itself, if the puppeteer alliance gets into too many wars... or they determine that they are strong enough... |
Posted By: Thexion
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 10:28
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1+ Puppeteer idea Is good but maybe it could be also done by diplomacy by friendly alliances to faction could compete rule with "Advanced diplomatic units" in Factions to get part of tax revenue and then you could send assassins to take out the diplomatic competition.. and spies and so on. Also information on who is using factions bridges and moving around in faction area could be available to the "puppeteer" Of course some factions could be immune to diplomacy and lot of diplomatic power and some factions would have huuuge armies.
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Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 11:52
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What about combining the puppeteer idea with restart after a siege. After taking over a city, the looser has to pay tribute (10% of everything is hard, but manageable) to the winner, and has his army numbers postet (perhaps with the diplomatic option to go underground and free himself with some guerilla action ). Other players could be keen on freeing the little one, if he had some friends out there (some don't have friends with some reason  ).Or the looser has the option to pack up some things (maybe some building stuff up to level 5, as HM mentioned) and move away (trying to leave no trace where to, hiding in the mountains). Would give the looser a chance to rebuild up from the lvls the ballistas left over and free himself, or others to free him. If he wants a new start, it's his choice. Will be complex, but that's what I like in this game |
Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 14:59
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So a city can no longer be razed or captured. I kind of like this idea, how about siege becomes far less damaging to the city and that once a city has been captured it becomes an NPC city that pays tribute to the alliance. However players within the defeated players alliance or in a NAP or confederation can attempt to siege back the town. Obviously the player would have the option to give up the city or their smallest town if the returned town would give the player too many towns for their population.The main problem with both these ideas however is that it would encorage, and reward bullying smaller alliances.
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Posted By: Larry
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 15:28
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The problem isn't that cities can be destroyed. The problem is that there isn't anywhere safe, and you can't run. Take a look at eve. One's assets within the game can (and frequently are) lost, sometimes on a personal scale (the loss of a ship) and sometimes on a massive scale (thousands of players, BOB vs Goonswarm). The difference is threefold. First a given player's skill points (trained over time, they improve the bonuses one gets with different ships / modules) are essentially safe from destruction and thus the most time consuming part of the game (skill points generate at an essentially fixed rate 24/7) is kept safe and yet a player can still have their ability to be a danger effectively nullified through the destruction of their physical assets (ships, stations, etc). Secondly, there is the concept of security levels, whereby the most destructive weapons and ships are not allowed in the higher security (more central geographically speaking) zones, and police come and shoot you if you attack another player (at least at the higher levels). Formal declarations of war allow combat, but capital ships and the like aren't allowed in highsec systems. On the other end of the spectrum you have 0.0 space which is owned by Player factions (instead of NPCs) and you get all manner of chaos mayhem and destruction. Finally you can run. You're in a spaceship, and generally speaking you can gtfo when someone shows up in system that looks scary. There are methods and means to prevent this (the most effective of which are of course reserved for 0.0) but you've got a shot nonetheless. The concept behind illyriad makes this far more challenging given the generally immovable nature of cities. Not all of these ideas translate well to Illyriad due to differences in the core domain (space flight vs. medieval Europe) but some of them are worth looking at. Tiered security zones make a lot of sense to me, because they allow players who don't wish to get involved with highly destructive sieges to avoid them whilst allowing those who do want them to make use of them. The biggest challenge with that idea is how a player goes from one zone to another, and to that I honestly don't have an answer given that current limitations on city teleportation wouldn't make that easy.
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Posted By: Grunvagr
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 16:20
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I don't see a problem with veteran players being destroyed in sieges. They have allies (or should, at that stage in the game) and stand a chance. Especially if proposed changes such as retaining their highest city's level of research + HM's idea of all lev 5 resource fields are put into the game. (those ideas should, or some version of it. Restarting has to be quicker for the health of the game, imo) Here's the thing: New players should not get obliterated before they even know what this game is all about, or how awesome *most* of the community is. Thing is, I don't think anything really special needs to be CODED in to protect noobs. Let players play police. There are already numerous alliances, (Toothless?, FDU, among others, who try to protect and take new players under their protective military wings). That's great. But knowledge is power. How can players help protect new players from bullies sieging if they don't know it's happening? Proposed Solution: Make the HERALD link have fields that can be sorted. For instance: sort by area (northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast), sort by attack type (attack, raid, siege, etc). This would allow players to see, ok who is sieging who in my quadrant. If it's some war or seemingly a fair fight, who cares. If it's a 6 town bully demolishing a 49 pop new player, that might enrage quite a few of the playerbase to react. Picture this: How cool would it be to join a new game, get sieged and initially think, wtf?!!?!?... only to have your mailbox fill up with a few players saying: Hang in there! Help is on the way. Here are some supplies and 1,000 troops to reinforce. Try to use the rocks I sent you to build your walls. Keep hope alive! I don't know about you, but I think that would be one of the coolest gaming experiences ever. To go from rock bottom to hopeful and to have such community involvement. |
Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 16:45
Lots of good points. You can choose to settle (as some have already done) so far away that attacking is too much of a pain to bother with - but that's hardly a sustainable tactic for a player or the game as a whole and it doesn't help your existing assets.
http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/enabling-disloyalty_topic838.html So, you need three things: 1) Some method of upping sticks and moving out. 2) Different security level zones (closer to King Sigurd = safer?) 3) Incentives to move out into the wilderness to get better stuff/more resources. For me - half the reason for moving is currently missing because you take your underlying square with you when you go. I'd rather be able to pick a new square and use it. |
Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 16:46
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This is a tough isssue. On one hand, I want to be able to destroy and /or conquor other cities, on the other hand, I don't want to upset or drive away someone from the game. I want people to be safe from unjustly losing what they built up, but I want the ability to punish/deter people who attack my alliance. I'm pretty much against crippling warfare as it currently is. I tend to side with the group that wants to see the ability to rebuild quicker. When I used to play MUDs where PKing was common, I remember getting annoyed whenever I was killed, but it went away real quick, because my character was still the same, he just got replaced in the starting spot and got a count on my character sheet for how many times he died. Nothing to dishearten me or make me want to quit. So it's not the dying part that sucks, it's the losing everything. As I said though, I want to be able to deter people from attacking so I see a need for some kind of penalty to accomplish that. So what if we restart with what we had before the siege began, but with "a pound of flesh" taken?
I don't believe any of us are bad people. We are all just trying to have the most fun in this game that we can. Having wars is nothing personal, it's just part of the game (very fun part or at least it's supposed to be). It merely becomes personal because the loser becomes disheartened by having to start all over rebuilding. In this game, we actually need bad guys, but every player who has actually tried to be a bad guy had been thrashed totally and driven from the game (Tubana, Diablito to name a couple). I'm not feeling sorry for them, but their only real offense was that in making the game fun for some of the people, they made the game not fun for others and in reality, this was not their fault, as they were simply working within the current game mechanics. We need a better way to encourage friendly conflict and I feel all we have now is unfriendly conflict with people who have offended us in some way.
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Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 20:02
I didn't think of an NPC City, just to have the looser pay tribute to another player and to have your army kept down (nearly same effect as constant raiding, but much more simple for both sides). It could be combined with the puppetteer having to post an army there constantly for fear of a counterattack or an guerilla attack from the underground (some diplos making assaults). would make siegers think twice of constantly taking a town.
I think, one better way is discused on the topic "Non instant battles" by HM Still quite unfriendly, but leaving the city alone |
Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 22:17
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Currently, armies take a long time to build and disappear instantly...there's no satisfaction or confidence in having actually gained the upper hand. Dragging out battle would certainly drag out the enjoyment of warfare, possibly lend greater weight to the sense of accomplishment from simply killing enemy troops, and just maybe make the proposition of war over non-city resources feel more approachable or worthwhile. Sovereignty looked like something that might be interesting enough over which to do battle, but so far there doesn't seem to be any point significant enough to draw troops. Certainly any battle that takes place over things other than cities will be more pragmatic and not require dire offense or extreme conviction. |
Posted By: KarL Aegis
Date Posted: 27 Sep 2010 at 22:23
+1 ------------- I am not amused. |
Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2010 at 01:31
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The current plans of the Devs where some buildings can't be transported works well with the idea of a defeated player/alliance retreating to a player safe zone. However it doesn't work too well when a player is attempting to move from the player safe zones to the un-policed areas. PLayers shouldn't be punished for entering these areas, However a retreating penalty is certainly appropriate.
What about making moving a city practically free (apart from preventing all unit and advanced resource production during the move) However the protection of the king comes at a very high price something like 100 gold * total city population. Which will appear as a debt. Meaning that no gold is deducted, however untill it is paid back the city can't perform military actions, cast offensive spells or diplomatic attacks. The debt can be paid back in installments.
Alternatively players moving into player protection are assumed to be on the run and therefore any move will be far quicker (and hastily) than those performed within the protection zone. So a move outside player protection will always take half the time but at the cost of some of the buildings.
It also makes a great deal of sense to allow players within player protection to be able to more freely move around as the players in player protection are likely still establishing alliance ties and should be allowed to make a move so as to support each other
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Posted By: HonoredMule
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2010 at 04:44
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If players are fighting over something outside a city and battle takes time, then the benefit of the thing being contested should also be always going to someone so that the prospect of endless battle doesn't negate the point of fighting. Otherwise, no one's going to bother toppling control of a resource only to be toppled soon after and not even gain benefit in between. During battle, things like passage over a bridge, sovereign output, or control of something vital like a shrine, portal, etc. would go to the warring faction with the most presence on the tile. And just to throw an extra wrinkle in the mix, make that "presence" being measured a count of units at the square irrespective of total military might or who's actually winning the battle. That way the winner of an ongoing battle is not revealed beforehand and also first-tier units regain some unique situation-specific benefit, adding more strategic nuance to army composition. |
Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2010 at 05:11
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I like the idea that actual numbers decides who recieves the benifits of a location, however splittling a bonus could work too. ie you get 45% of the 5% bonus to mana so you recieve a 2.4% bonus. With the pvp and player safe zones perhaps cities recieve damage as normal however a successful siege will re-locate the city somewhere in the player safe zone.
Also something I was thinking about is that numbers shouldn't always be a good thing. And military might shouldn't be the only factor in determining casualties. Ie a slaughter should only really be possible on plains. The truth is in a forest casualties should be close to even on both sides as it is difficult to flank the enemy, create a wall of arrows etc 1 spearman hideing in a bush should have a very good chance to take out 1 enemy in an army of 10,000. Skill should play a more important role in close quaters, numbers are more imporatant on open plains.
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Posted By: Brids17
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2010 at 17:29
| My thread has officially become too complicated for me to understand what you guys are talking about...O_o |
Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2010 at 23:22
Not complicated, just many good ideas mixed together, would need some sorting out.  Also This topic begins mixing with "Non-insta-battles" (think I read some posts there already?) |
Posted By: Mandarins31
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2010 at 19:54
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And to talk again about the sieges... What if the possibility to erase a city was enable, waiting the city to lose just 25% of his pop to take the city, reduce siege weapons power to keep the same time a siege takes today? You could take again your city and it would have lost 50% of its pop, not 93% (75% of initial pop + 25% of initial pop * 75/100) Then more fights, less loses, less problems with guys how lost everything and leave the game? Also that wouldn't make people buy less prestige to rebuild or to make war, as there would be more battles for the cities. That is my point but i undertand that GM's are taking this subject with many precautions. |
Posted By: G0DsDestroyer
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2010 at 03:38
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When i was just starting the game i was attacked and my army was destroyed.
Did i give up and quit, no i was pissed that all my hard work was destroyed.
When i sieged someone with an army half the size of mine and it was destroyed, i didn't give up i just rebuilt. I believe that if you can't take a loss then don't play the game OR find an alliance that will shelter you. The Alliance that i am in will protect u if you really can't defend yourself. I would give my last strength to those whom need the Æsir's protection.
Don't ever give up
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Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2010 at 04:27
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Well, armies can always be rebuilt, in a matter of days... or hours... or weeks... depending on the scale. Cities though, are exponentially... more time consuming to rebuild. |
Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2010 at 14:20
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I think most people wan't to be able to save something. Perhaps my idea of only destroying barracks, marktetplace etc is a bit too conservative. However I think the best middle ground would be the idea of keeping basic resources. These are the most annoying and time consuming aspect of the game. However personally i'd be leaning towards these structures being protected. Ie siege weapons cannott hit these structures. This is beacause players could deliberately neglect to raze or capture a city so that the player would be starting at zero.
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Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2010 at 16:16
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Oh and another thing that's been bugging me is that the city wall and runes don't play much of a role in siege. I know that pre-clearing cities is supposed to be essential for a well co-ordinated siege. However once the encampment is set up there isn't that great a need to attack the city untill the wall has started to fall.
So I was thinking that it'd make a lot more sense in terms of gameplay as well as realism if sally forth was heavily nerfed, however every volley against a city required something simmilar to a raid. Afterall a siege hook would certainly need to get into archer range to tear down a wall. However siege equipment isn't damaged in the raid and damage is done regardless of a win or loss (perhaps an accuracy penalty for a loss tho)
So a raid style attack would be performed against the target city every hour in a siege. However The siegeing player would be able to command a pause in bombardment (camp does not break up but "raids" and damage to the city cease untill more re-inforcments arrive.
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Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2010 at 17:09
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what about giving cities the possibility to fire back? Why not building some ballistas up on the wall to destroy attacking warmachines. That would make it necessary for the attacker to storm the wall and destroy them to rescue their own machines. |
Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2010 at 18:30
+10 Accuracy is half, and increases at half rate. (Players would still spam this either way, just to mitigate the threat that is the total loss of a city.) |
Posted By: Torn Sky
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2010 at 18:35
| why add wall ballistas when all you need to do is give Siege equipment in a city the ability to return fire during a siege with a chance to kill units in the siege encampment including the siege weapons |
Posted By: Hora
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2010 at 19:20
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That's actually what I meant, TS. That option would be able with Baracks Lvl 15 upward (when you have siege engines) Would give even the possibility to reinforce towns with catapults Rams inside a town would be a bit strange when firing back . So perhaps give just anti building ones a new meaning except just destroying towns? |
Posted By: Azreil
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2010 at 20:13
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This is my first post here in the Forum and please bear with me for some miscues or disconnect with this thread. I have read through most of the posts and I am particularly interested in the arguments for and against war and the necessity to give players the reason for playing on, particularly by not being so harsly defeated and decimated in the siege battles. I have played the browser game Global Wars for more than one year and I was part of the team which won Server 6 there. But I have not not played Travian or Tribal Wars and the like, only Global Wars (or GW). So I would like to take my comparisons from that game. I would like to say that GW is a brutal war-based game (the setting is like post Cold War Europe and the technology/waeponry is based on modern-day warfare: stealth fighters, SAMs, main battle tanks, etc.). The brutality is heightened by the game objective to win a particular server by the first alliance to send a landing mission to Mars. So there is always lots of fighting and the race to the finish is stressful, to say the least. I have tried to play again in another server but quit due to the stress. So playing here in Illyriad is literally a breeze compared to GW.
What I found in GW which I think could be relevant or applicable to Illyriad in the light of this thread are the following:
1 I agree with the position that games like Illyriad as well as GW are made for war/conflict/hostility. WE play it because we love the conflict in it. Without it, this game will fade away because peace-loving players would rather flock to Farmville.
2. If you love to play Illyriad, destruction of your cities will not make you quit. If it were to happen to me, I would gladly settle where the game relocates me and start all over again. I would hope to be in the farther reaches of the map so that I could be the veteran in that area and dominate the newbies nearby. In GW, cities could not be destroyed so you have to be content with living with your next-door enemy for the rest of the game and if you are the one being battered, you simply build an outpost far far away and store your resources and hide your army there from from the next door all-powerful enemy. But this is one thing about Illyriad because here I could make such pesky neighbors disappear for good from my backyard.
3. GW uses a reputation/penalty system which penalizes unprovoked attacks or pearl harbor type attacks. There you have to declare another player as "Hostile" first before you can attack him without penalty. The "Hostility" timer counts down for 8 hours. If you say attack without declaring hostility first, you incur a reputation penalty of say 10 points. If you attack another with an nuke ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) you incur say 100 points. Each penalty brings down your reputation points which you earn positively by other means or it automatically counts up every time you reaches a particular level of population or level of development. When you become negative reputation, you get slapped with a "Rogue Player" brand seen on the player rosters. A Rogue Player is not only a psychological or social punishment, it carries with it other penalties like a decrease in your attacking power or gets you booted out of your current alliance or you cant join an alliance and the like. I think that such a Penalty System could also be done in Illyriad to discourage adventurism and aggression.
4. In GW, there is a maximum limit of 10 alliances which one can join in the lifetime of the server. Re-joining alliances count as one. After you left your 10th alliance, you could no longer be admitted to any alliance so you are left alone and vulnerable. This I think is another tool to discourage opportunism by jumping from one alliance to the other, thus people make careful decisions about alliances and long-term bonds/loyalties are created. The alliances are actually the lifeblood of games like these. Thus strengthening the alliance system would also contribute to the retention of the core playing base. It will always be a reality that players will come and go, not all would play the game for keeps. But what is important for the game developers is to maintain or at least consistently increase the core base. Thus the need for a strong alliance system.
5. I loved playing GW but I quit it (in late 2009) after having tasted victory in Server 6. Because the next servers were just utter duplications. So I really appreciate the current design of Illyriad as it is more open-ended and not directed towards a race to win the server and I do hope the game developers keep it that way. Although this game is built for war as i said earlier, the fantasy setting and the role-playing aspect is so much more engrossing than the war factor alone. So i guess if you play this game for war alone, you will not last long since either you will get decimated by more powerful enemies or you will not have really played the role.
I do not intend this to be an exhaustive comparison between Illyriad and Global Wars so I would like to limit my discussion to the above. I hope that I made some sense and gave some useful insights for the developers to consider.
Warm regards to all and see you all in-game,
Azreil
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Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 03 Oct 2010 at 00:16
| Giving the ability for siege weapons to return fire could be a good idea however my "raid" idea wouldn't be adding any new game mechanisms where as the idea of ruturn fire would need to incorporate a change in mechanics as these weapons currently cant attack troops. How hard this would be I don't Know |
Posted By: Shrapnel
Date Posted: 03 Oct 2010 at 01:00
| Given the seemingly majority opinion that simply attacking someone is justification for total annihilation by siege weapons and the potential this mentality has to drive players from the game, I am now of the opinion that siege weapons as they are now are just bad and that the feature should be disabled until it is fixed. |
Posted By: KillerPoodle
Date Posted: 03 Oct 2010 at 02:46
| I think you're exaggerating. |
Posted By: bartimeus
Date Posted: 03 Oct 2010 at 18:01
I support your Idea of keeping rescource intact, It would give more meaning to capturing a city, and less pain form being attacked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6UApyacDXM&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6UApyacDXM&feature=related I think this video shows you cann't hurt a commander with these defending siege weapon.  Otherwise, +1 for this idea. ------------- Bartimeus, your very best friend. |
Posted By: col0005
Date Posted: 03 Oct 2010 at 21:24
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another Point i'd like to make is that with the realease of factions and greater capacity for trade, wars could soon start over trade routs. Personally I'd like The option of destroying a competitiors Marketplace, however as it stands in order to effectively do this i'd have to destroy most of said players city. It's not just the risk of loosing everything that is reigning in players desire to siege, it's also that many players woud feel bad about destroying someones capital.
If I was actually involved in a siege camp i'd only really find it fun if it was against an equal alliance, but also over one of their smaller settlments (nothing to feel bad about)
That's why I wanted my more coservative option. Fighting to set someones capital back about a month or fighting to save mine would be more fun to me as there is much less pain or guilt than fighting for total destruction.
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Posted By: Zangi
Date Posted: 03 Oct 2010 at 22:24
Yes. What we need is for players to specifically target buildings for blowing up/temporary 'debuff'/disablement, by diplo and military forces. Tacking on +5 minutes to Military training time? Priceless in a war. Give people a reason to defend their home with military instead of 'dodging'. And make normal attacking or even raiding worth more... instead of just destroying the whole city to disable the 'enemy'... |