"Too Much Peace" Revisited

[Tom]

Yes, we all agree it was horrible and good riddance.

but...


I do believe in the basic concept, that a realm that is boring should be punished. Now the difficult part is in determining when a war is cold and when a war is hot and all that. And I think we've all learnt it is crazy difficult to do that in code.

But...

Why do it in code at all? We have an incredible AI at our disposal, one that can determine whether a realm is in enough wars or boring as hell in like a second or so.

I am, of course, talking about our players.

We have a "protest" option so players can get rid of abusive government members. How about giving players a "this realm is boring" button as well, silent protest only? Results of this continuous in-game poll would be displayed to the ruler and general, and if it goes above a certain threshold, then a) the realm and b) they personally will suffer until some battles happen. A declaration of war (not a continuous state of war, only a NEW declaration of war!) could temporarily lower this value, but only players deciding that the realm isn't boring anymore would really keep it down.

Obviously, this is a rough thought at the moment, so please do tear it apart.


Primary goal:

Force the old geezers who do nothing but keep the status quo into more aggressive politics or else make way for new, ambitious characters who will.

[Bhranthan]

Good step but i can see many problems coming from this and high vulnerability for abuse.
Perhaps if we put different values for different kind of players?
For example those who rarely complain get a little more value, long term players/medals increase value, new realm members get a bit less value.

Then still mechanics could help.
The game can determine if there is a battle between nobles or just rogues(rogue battles should also be included but with far less value), and also how many.
It can also determine how much looting or takeover activities are being preformed, how many men are lost and recruited.
Can we use those values and their frequency over time?

Also punishing a general for a realms foreign policy is perhaps a bit extreme.
Why not use the value to further reward individual troop leaders/nobles instead.
Perhaps every single noble with an estate could implement war tax on there estate, an extra tax income which they can set by them selves depending on the overall value of the poll and mechanics as stated above(to determine if the realm is at a real war or not).
The tax share possibilities could increase or decrease depending on that value.
And perhaps have a slight effect on the region, with lords not or barley able to get a picture of how much his individual knights get from there extra war taxes, so he wont adjust the knights share for example. This extra tax should also be further untaxable by lords nor Duke nor King.
This will give every aligned noble an extra motivation to join high value realms, forcing low value realms to go to war with neighbours, or split and fight its self.
This will also affect leaderships of realms.
Everyone should get a rough idea of the values of realms on the continents there in or going to.
To see who's values are lowest, medium and highest for example.
We shouldn't focus on allowing new realm members to protest there realm and punish rulers, but simply be able to get to a good realm in the first place, get extra personal taxes from there estate, go to war and have fun.

I can still see many flaws in my own ideas, we would still need to focus on other mechanics to further penalize really large realms.
In case that large realm stops fighting and two small realms are fighting on the other side of the continent, nobles will start flocking there.
A massive alliance block will not likely exist long but what stops one large realm to intervene in every conflict just to keep there value high and the majority of its nobility supporting that?
Battlemaster needs more balancing factors to keep wars long and intense like when i joined in jan 2005 and had my characters fight the Yssrian/Caligan war on the EC, with battles almost every day for atleast a year.
The dev team has already been working on this in various ways and i am happy to see them going into this direction.
Further penalties on large realms in terms of resources or resource efficiency along with restricting alliance and peace diplomacy for them depending on size (so small realms can have more alliances then large realms).
Realms like Perdan, Sirion or Caligus could be restricted to one Ally, and two peace treaties, while small realms like Eponllyn or Fallangard can have several allies and no peace restriction.

[Jaden]

I like the idea, but the mechanic is not really a BM mechanic though... voting to determine something like this?  ??? it's just weird.

I really like the war taxes idea, and there is historical basis too. Though I am not sure what its going to do to the BM economy, especially some places where there is just a glut of gold.

[vonGenf]

Perhaps every single noble with an estate could implement war tax on there estate, an extra tax income which they can set by them selves depending on the overall value of the poll and mechanics as stated above(to determine if the realm is at a real war or not).

Whether it's determined by a poll or mechanics, it's wide open to abuse. People would just game the system to obtain the extra income.

[Anaris]

How about giving players a "this realm is boring" button as well, silent protest only?

Heck, we could start with it having no IG effect at all beyond information—let the ruler and general know, and send the information to the dev team, as well, so we can get an overview of which realms are considered significantly boring.

If we see that some realms have a high percentage of players who think they're boring, then we can implement some kind of relatively slow-ramping negative effects.

[Jaden]

Well the realm I am in is at war, and I still think its boring at times. Its better than when its was at peace-fun, but still...

I dont think the war taxes should really be set towards the poll though, its too open to abuse.
Maybe we should a recent battle detection or something, but then we will be back to a TMP system.

[Tom]

Heck, we could start with it having no IG effect at all beyond information—let the ruler and general know, and send the information to the dev team, as well, so we can get an overview of which realms are considered significantly boring.

If we see that some realms have a high percentage of players who think they're boring, then we can implement some kind of relatively slow-ramping negative effects.

Agreed. Let's do this as a first step and check on the results. It'll be a ton more informative then all the forum discussions.

[Buffalkill]

Sounds like a good way for rulers to get candid anonymous feedback, assuming it would be anonymous. But make it a fluid ranking system, like a 5-star boredom index and allow players to change their rating whenever they choose. I'd also be in favour of making the scores public, for the benefit of players looking to join or leave a realm. Instead of requiring a declaration of war, I suggest allowing the players to decide when to rescind or change their rating. War is good, but not meaningless hasty wars without any context. There doesn't need to be an IG mechanism to punish boring rulers, because the boredom index will either nudge them to make things more interesting, or bored nobles will migrate to more interesting realms.

[Indirik]

Agreed. Let's do this as a first step and check on the results. It'll be a ton more informative then all the forum discussions.

If it's not something that has any real effects, then it won't be used. The data you gather will probably not be very useful.

If this is something that gets implemented it will have to have some serious thought as to how to prevent abuse. Having a battle with another realm should result in a significant drop in the value. Possibly other things as well.

[Anaris]

If it's not something that has any real effects, then it won't be used. The data you gather will probably not be very useful.

I should think that "lets your Ruler and General know, anonymously, that you consider the current situation boring" and "lets the dev team know that your leaders aren't doing enough to keep things interesting for you" should be enough to get at least a fair number of people to use it.

If this is something that gets implemented it will have to have some serious thought as to how to prevent abuse. Having a battle with another realm should result in a significant drop in the value. Possibly other things as well.

War can be as boring as peace, if it's the wrong war. March two weeks, fight one battle, march two weeks back to refit...or even replace the battle part with sitting staring across the border for five days because no one dares make the first move.

We need to know what people actually find boring.

[Indirik]

We need to know what people actually find boring.

So give them a couple options. Instead of a BORING button, give them a drop-down with three or four choices.

This realm is boring because:
1) The war we are in is boring. (Too much travel, not enough battles, etc.)
2) Nothing ever happens at all.
3) The nobles are kept in the dark, and never told anything.
4) Other.

Then at least you stand to get some decent feedback.

[Anaris]

So give them a couple options. Instead of a BORING button, give them a drop-down with three or four choices.

This realm is boring because:
1) The war we are in is boring. (Too much travel, not enough battles, etc.)
2) Nothing ever happens at all.
3) The nobles are kept in the dark, and never told anything.
4) Other.

Then at least you stand to get some decent feedback.

That sounds reasonable. It should be a relatively trivial modification to the basic idea.

[Buffalkill]

I created a feature request which, although inspired by this thread, is different enough to warrant a separate thread: http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,5069.0.html

[Tom]

So give them a couple options. Instead of a BORING button, give them a drop-down with three or four choices.

No

Very solid research shows that, basically (don't quote me on the exact number) every additional option cuts the number of responses you get in half.

If we want this to have any meaning, it must be as simple as possible. There's a reason a 5-star system is used so much - it works.

[Buffalkill]

There's a reason a 5-star system is used so much - it works.