Malarious:

..

I could agree with revising costs appropriately, but envoys means doing this incrementally month by month, and things end up falling by the wayside. If we do this by envoys, we'd need to plan out all the changes in a group collaboration and have an envoy do a piece each month. There'd be a period where things are a little off until we catch up with those.

Diminishing returns were introduced for stat buffs and dmp to combat extreme outliers. I see no reason why it can't be applied to villages/flares/domoths. I would prefer making it more difficult for an org to capture more than x of 'thing', than decreasing the bonuses from each 'thing'. That way a strong org/alliance can still dominate, and they'll still have reasons to try, but the down orgs can get a break every now and then. I do agree, however, that these things can probably be addressed when looking at each individual 'win' mechanic.

They already apply to both villages and domoths.

Rivius:

I could agree with revising costs appropriately, but envoys means doing this incrementally month by month, and things end up falling by the wayside. If we do this by envoys, we'd need to plan out all the changes in a group collaboration and have an envoy do a piece each month. There'd be a period where things are a little off until we catch up with those.

Actually we... you know what.. nevermind. Not productive, you can ask me in game if you want to know.

Malarious:


Actually we... you know what.. nevermind. Not productive, you can ask me in game if you want to know.

Sounds like the whole purpose of the Something Monkish clan... until half of the monk envoys fell off. That, and I have offered up reports to envoys who would offer up slots. Very few people have taken me up on the offer.

Monks have moved to internal and will be running separate paths solutions. We will have degrees of change that way!

As to open envoy slots..... if people want to work on some reports that you know... aim to balance things... let me know I have a list :D If every guild nerfed 1 thing we would be nearly balanced in 1 month.

P.S. We moved internal because the general census is people do not know what to do. After listening to complaints here and combining them with our own concerns we have an idea of the issue and will run some scenarios.

Xenthos:

They already apply to both villages and domoths.

How, exactly? Other than hard coded restrictions on which ones you can hold at the same time, there is nothing that makes getting one harder if you already have some. Unless I'm missing something, of course, but I've just looked over all of the related help files. I'm talking about something like, if you already have three villages, you need 50 more points than usual to win a fourth. (Numbers pulled out of thin air.) Domoths don't seem to be as much of a problem to me, because of how limited they are, and how difficult it is to get and upkeep them. Villages and flares really need some tweaking, though.

Villages opposed in trade are harder to take if you have a rival. So yes, 50 more points if you hold a rival.

Right, but that's not what I'm talking about.

Lilia:

How, exactly? Other than hard coded restrictions on which ones you can hold at the same time, there is nothing that makes getting one harder if you already have some. Unless I'm missing something, of course, but I've just looked over all of the related help files. I'm talking about something like, if you already have three villages, you need 50 more points than usual to win a fourth. (Numbers pulled out of thin air.) Domoths don't seem to be as much of a problem to me, because of how limited they are, and how difficult it is to get and upkeep them. Villages and flares really need some tweaking, though.

And in this case you truly are punishing an org for being succesfull. What you are really proposing is to make it that the orgs not winning nolonger need to improve (either population or skill wise) as things will just be handed to them. This doesn't work in a conflict game.

Lilia:

How, exactly? Other than hard coded restrictions on which ones you can hold at the same time, there is nothing that makes getting one harder if you already have some. Unless I'm missing something, of course, but I've just looked over all of the related help files. I'm talking about something like, if you already have three villages, you need 50 more points than usual to win a fourth. (Numbers pulled out of thin air.) Domoths don't seem to be as much of a problem to me, because of how limited they are, and how difficult it is to get and upkeep them. Villages and flares really need some tweaking, though.

The hard coded restriction is on Domoths.

Villages are not hard-coded. However, if you control both parts of the pair, they both don't like you as much meaning that it is harder to keep them on the revolt. If you own 3 mining villages they will all hate you when they revolt, so good luck getting any back.

So, yes, you are missing something. Village feelings work against one org holding every village.

No, you are not punishing anyone. There are MANY examples of this in real life, especially in the realm of military and political conquest. It is the main reason no one in real life has ever conquered the entire world. Some people came close, but while their armies were more than powerful enough to overcome any individual opponent, as their realm became larger the organization had to devote ever-increasing resources to maintenance, and subsequently less were available for conquest.

Look at it this way: A punishment is an action designed to extinguish a behaviour. You say we are punishing people for holding villages/domoths/flares/nodes/strawberries, in which case the behaviour we would be trying to extinguish is 'holding villages/etc.' - tell me, how will saying "you can still have another because you already have x many, but you'll have to work a bit harder" force people not only to not participate in the future, but to release control of those things they already have.

We are not advocating 'punish the winners'. Rather, this is us saying 'challenge the winners'. If you are on top, you've made it painfully clear that you are better than your opponents at this juncture in time. When you beat a level in a 'normal' videogame, doesn't the next level bring with it stronger NPCs and a more clever AI, so you don't get bored smashing the same level-1 sprites? I suppose there are a few of you who find trolling the same defenseless opponents under the same conditions repeatedly to be fun, but honestly, it is not a practice that is good for the health of the game.

Of course, this is excluding the 'lock-out' mechanic that some people are proposing and which exists for domoths. In fact, if other measures along the lines I implied here were applied, I would actually propose removing the lock-out for opposing domoths.

If that's what you're advocating, then congratulations, it's already a mechanic in Lusternia.

In villages, if you hold opposing villages together, they each begin to hate you, resulting in a not-so-high gain in villages feelings. If you're still not happy about that, then I feel like it's Conquest government that's the real problem - it's a passive gain in village feelings, and the more you own the faster the gain will be. You have to keep in mind, though, that Conquest nations have no way of improving relations in their own villages, plus the fact that they can only actively improve relations in foreign villages using weakening influence (and a surprising amount of villagers are immune to weakening).

In domoths, there's the whole 'you can't own two opposing Domoths'. Plus, while this is not specifically hard-coded: Domoths require regular upkeep, and so the more you have the more tedious the upkeep gets. Sooner or later your enemies will be able to take a Domoth from you because you have to upgrade in a time when you yourself have no fighters while they have plenty (this actually happens more often than not - sometimes, we're actually surprised we don't get contested for a Domoth and we go to great lengths to be sneaky when upgrading).

Rathan:

No, you are not punishing anyone. There are MANY examples of this in real life, especially in the realm of military and political conquest. It is the main reason no one in real life has ever conquered the entire world. Some people came close, but while their armies were more than powerful enough to overcome any individual opponent, as their realm became larger the organization had to devote ever-increasing resources to maintenance, and subsequently less were available for conquest.

Look at it this way: A punishment is an action designed to extinguish a behaviour. You say we are punishing people for holding villages/domoths/flares/nodes/strawberries, in which case the behaviour we would be trying to extinguish is 'holding villages/etc.' - tell me, how will saying "you can still have another because you already have x many, but you'll have to work a bit harder" force people not only to not participate in the future, but to release control of those things they already have.

We are not advocating 'punish the winners'. Rather, this is us saying 'challenge the winners'. If you are on top, you've made it painfully clear that you are better than your opponents at this juncture in time. When you beat a level in a 'normal' videogame, doesn't the next level bring with it stronger NPCs and a more clever AI, so you don't get bored smashing the same level-1 sprites? I suppose there are a few of you who find trolling the same defenseless opponents under the same conditions repeatedly to be fun, but honestly, it is not a practice that is good for the health of the game.

Of course, this is excluding the 'lock-out' mechanic that some people are proposing and which exists for domoths. In fact, if other measures along the lines I implied here were applied, I would actually propose removing the lock-out for opposing domoths.

1. Real life has no bearings on Lusternia. Not only did you oversimplify and wrongfully analyze the driving spool as to why nobody took over the world in real life. You managed to trivialize the suffering to both sides caused by a real war.

2.I play many online games focused on player versus player. Not a single one has mechanics that unbalance the victory objectives because one force is just not as skilled/devoted as the other. I guess the devs of those games have faith in the ability of humans to learn from mistakes.

3. If you have a highly succesfull org that would have won a competition, however you invented a pentalty that only affected them and this caused them to lose. Then you did punish them for being succesfull for you took away their victory on account of them simply being better. And this is your very intent, to cause them to lose as you want to open up villages. (In reality it will only cause revolts of 6-7 hours again and nobody likes those but that is another matter)

As a historian who has taken collegiate courses on precisely this subject, I can say that while it is a terrible oversimplifcation, it is not a mischaracterization. Furthermore, attrition was not a concern for most expanding empires in early history, for their military was composed in large part of soldiers from the areas they conquered.

You, on the other hand, are purposefully inverting my statement on handicaps in games. You are correct, people do not typically alter objectives based on a lack of motivation from one side. However, that is not the point I made at all. What I did say is that people can and often do change objectives based on previous successes of an organization, irrespective of the motivation they exhibit.

This is largely a philosophical debate at this point, but "taking away" something that someone does not yet control is not a punishment. If that were the case, then Estarra has been punishing us all by having taken away large quantities of essence when she ended double experience after the google promotion. I demand that we immediately be compensated with a bulk payment, and double experience be reinstated! You cannot compare reality against a hypothetical ideal, because hypothetical ideals can be optimized for any position. You could just as easily make the claim that the administration is punishing losing orgs by NOT making increasing difficulty, causing them to lose fights that they would otherwise win when it is clear that they cannot compete under the current system.

But they can win under the current system. The 'losing side' has taken village successfully, has usurped Domoths successfully, has captured bubbles successfully, has even raided the supermobs of the opposing, 'winning side' successfully. The problem is that you guys seem so intent on looking at all the negatives (even in your victories - Munsia trampling over Serenwilde, etc.). If you're on the losing side, each and every single victory should be celebrated, and even the losses should be counted as learning experiences. A few weeks back I was reading the Serenwilde logs and I saw favors being given out for merely putting in the effort to fight, and that's good. That's what brings up morale, and what encourages players to keep going at it. Even in Glomdoring, we practically throw out favors (to the point that more than half of CWHO is CR6) for little things like bringing in fae, participating, etc.

Player attitude is where it's at.

You know, that's exactly what I've been telling Serenwilde, but... the leadership doesn't believe me, and typically it gets to the fringe of territory where I'd be CDFed for continuing to bring it up before I let it rest a week or two. As much as it confuses me to say this, I completely agree with you Alacardael, and it's why I've been yelling every chance I get that other parts of the alliance need to reign in their members (not just Munsia) before their fits shove us back into the hole of not caring-tude.

So, I dunno. I could point out that the winning orgs could win under a new handicapped system just as easily as the losing orgs now could win under this system, but at this point it seems like debate for the sake of debate. Shuyin has already said it's out of the report anyway, so let us agree to believe what we believe?

Rathan:

As a historian who has taken collegiate courses on precisely this subject, I can say that while it is a terrible oversimplifcation, it is not a mischaracterization. Furthermore, attrition was not a concern for most expanding empires in early history, for their military was composed in large part of soldiers from the areas they conquered.

You, on the other hand, are purposefully inverting my statement on handicaps in games. You are correct, people do not typically alter objectives based on a lack of motivation from one side. However, that is not the point I made at all. What I did say is that people can and often do change objectives based on previous successes of an organization, irrespective of the motivation they exhibit.

This is largely a philosophical debate at this point, but "taking away" something that someone does not yet control is not a punishment. If that were the case, then Estarra has been punishing us all by having taken away large quantities of essence when she ended double experience after the google promotion. I demand that we immediately be compensated with a bulk payment, and double experience be reinstated! You cannot compare reality against a hypothetical ideal, because hypothetical ideals can be optimized for any position. You could just as easily make the claim that the administration is punishing losing orgs by NOT making increasing difficulty, causing them to lose fights that they would otherwise win when it is clear that they cannot compete under the current system.

Ah obviously I misunderstood this thread for being on how to improve a game, I must have miss clicked and ended up in the philosophical debate section of the forums.

I'm not talking about the restrictions on opposing villages, since that makes things harder no matter how many other villages you hold. I agree with the idea that rather than punishing an org that is doing well, it would help provide a continuing challenge. If you think this is punishment, you are implying that the 'winning' org is entitled to even more villages.That is pretty much the definition of Winning Org Momentum, which most people agree is a problem. My suggestion is to lesson the impact said momentum would have.

Making it a bit harder for one org is not 'handing it over' to the others. If you have max feelings, good influencers/debators, and the larger force present, you will still win. But in cases where there's more of an even match numbers wise, it could give one side the leg up they might need. I have experienced a few instances where I felt we just needed a bit more time, at the very least to do more than get steamrolled. To me, a close loss is much more preferable to a crushing defeat. You can learn from the former, not so much from the latter.

I won't lie, this is how I pictured the org momentum thread to go anyway: don't punish winners vs. we're not punishing winners.

I don't think my appraisal of the situation is wrong anyway, the main example people keep making is related to villages, so we can bring it up there.