BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Battleplaster on November 06, 2017, 09:47:32 PM
-
Indeed they do, but not in the sense that you might expect.
I have kept from writing this post for a long time for I did not crave the discussion it would spark. However I enjoy the game greatly and wish it to flourish. Alas, the latest craze in monsters and undead spawns will soon be the last twist of the dagger.
The exorbitant amount of rogue forces on Dwilight are a curse upon the player base of Battle Master.
As a ruler I have watched a large amount of, frustrated, players leave the game due to the realm being essentially crippled. Although I can't be certain, I expect the same in many of the other realms.
Venturing forth from the home lands to do battle with another realm is near impossible, for leaving your realm regions will result in them being ravaged by rogues.
Thus, it is constant baby sitting time, marching back and forth between regions, retaking one, losing another, all versus a nameless faceless opponent called 'Rogue'. This goes on for real life months, severely worsened by the new sea travel 'feature'. New players leave after a few weeks of this mindless battle, veteran players too, or write posts filled with frustration.
One of the ooc messages I received from a years long veteran literally read : 'We spend a RL year doing this. Not this !@#$ again!', and deleted his account.
He was not the only one to leave like this.
Interaction with other realms and players is fun, engaging and the essence of the game. It's what keeps people around.
Whatever the idea was behind the monster spawns, it is not working.
You are killing the continent.
Please, please, please, stop it.
Thank you.
-
Thought monsters on Dwilight are there to destroy realms? Just let them destroy your realm and go join some other realm instead.
-
The monsters are meant to force people to LEAVE!
If people would stop sticking out in Fissoa, Madina, D'Hara and them, then the monsters would stop and people could go to war with one another again.
-
So... What you're saying is... This favors the idea of players being forced out of their ancestral homes, the very basis of their characters' personalities and histories, the loss of which would cripple many a playthrough... To join random realm ABC, on the opposite side of the continent, where they neither have ties nor care for the government/people/geography/religion/internal issues.
Seems legit. I just rejoined Dwilight after being gone for years. My beloved Terran is still a hole in the ground, and D'hara is a struggle to survive the rogue invasions. I don't enjoy any of the other realms, save perhaps Luria, so I'd sooner quit or move to another continent before I continue on Dwilight in a manner unbecoming to the entire basis of my character there.
See the issue?
-
The difference is, unlike the last time when they actually forced people out, monsters just attack whichever realm that has too many regions with too few nobles. It is based on the noble density. That is what Anaris said in the monster problems thread.
If you want to survive, you need to attract players and keep things interesting. Or you can give up few regions to raise the density.
So the best option for you now is start attracting players to increase your density or start shrinking your realm size. The higher your density, the less likely monsters will harass your realm. You will still get attacked but you won't be the main target like some realms.
To be honest, what are you even going to do without monsters. Interacting with other realms? How are you going to do that when you are miles away from other realms?
If you want to avoid joining random realm ABC, start getting more nobles to strengthen your realm ASAP.
-
Westgard would seem to disprove the theory that monsters alone are killing interaction between realms and forcing players to leave Dwilight (and the game) due to a constant grind against monster spawns. We're the realm that does most of the heavy lifting in the monster fighting and we seem to maintain a position as either number one or number two realm in terms of numbers of players. I think the lowest we've ever gone (so far) is the number three spot.
Of course, constant onslaughts by monsters and undead will limit other actions realms can take (particularly Westgard, D'Hara, and Madina), but that doesn't mean that those realms have to be boring or don't interact with other realms. Westgard tends to have three types of nobles. The ones who arrive and stay. The ones that arrive, stay for a few months, and then move on. And the new players who arrive and then stop playing. I think that's pretty much normal for most realms across the game. Just speaking for my realm, I don't feel like we have a poor retention rate. I'd probably say we have a better retention rate than many other realms. I suppose what monster fighting doesn't allow is a total victory over an opponent, which perhaps a certain number of players enjoy.
-
The difference is, unlike the last time when they actually forced people out, monsters just attack whichever realm that has too many regions with too few nobles. It is based on the noble density. That is what Anaris said in the monster problems thread.
If you want to survive, you need to attract players and keep things interesting. Or you can give up few regions to raise the density.
So the best option for you now is start attracting players to increase your density or start shrinking your realm size. The higher your density, the less likely monsters will harass your realm. You will still get attacked but you won't be the main target like some realms.
To be honest, what are you even going to do without monsters. Interacting with other realms? How are you going to do that when you are miles away from other realms?
If you want to avoid joining random realm ABC, start getting more nobles to strengthen your realm ASAP.
This. Realms have a choice. If you want to sit miles away from everyone, expand beyond what your noble density will support and then get hammered by monsters then that is entirely your fault. There is no reason why Madina, or Fissoa (or any other realm) couldn't make a big thing out of relocating their entire realm to a better location. There is no reason why any realm can't adopt a Westgard approach of being a bastion against monsters and making a virtue out of it. There is no reason why any realm can't consolidate around a core they actually have the density to defend and then use the time between monster invasions to march off to fight wars elsewhere.
If your realm is boring then it's not the mechanics that are at fault but the players within it. Because only you, collectively, have the power to change things. You've got all sorts of options about things to do to liven things up (for instance, my char is plotting civil war in D'Hara), but if you decide that you want to stick in the exact same spot and overextend yourselves then that's also an option and you're actively choosing it over other options that might be more fun.
-
Antoine: shhhhh, that's supposed to be a secret, isn't it? :P
-
Luria seems to be holding reasonably well against the hordes and like Westgard is strongly invested in a "defence of humanity" campaign. We sent a small force to aid D'Hara with their last infestation despite our own pressures and one day I'm confident that we will reclaim our fourth city of Shinnen.
The Lurian Empire has too much history to simply abandon, and quite a few of us are veterans of the western invasion. If getting hammered by 56K CS in Golden Farrow didn't make me want to join the SA heartlands, the current modest infestations certainly won't!
-
Antoine: shhhhh, that's supposed to be a secret, isn't it? :P
Eh, I trust people not to use OOC information IC :p
-
When you prefer 56k CS monsters instead of deal with Crixus.
SEND MORE MONSTERS!
-
If the rogues didn't attack your realms, your realms would have NOTHING to do.
Because the only realms that ever did anything are still doing so, and the only realms that are crippled by the rogues are those that never do anything anyways.
The rogues are player-driven. Stop senseless sprawl and they won't be much of an issue. If you first end your own senseless sprawl, and you see neighbors not doing so, go teach them a lesson to force them to stop expanding.
Edit: If this is about D'Hara, then it's probably the reason why it currently has the most foreign realms in its land I ever remember it having, the struggle is making D'Hara reach out more than it is known for. There are troops from at least Westgard, Morek, and Luria helping D'Hara out. It's pretty much unprecedented.
-
I recall the Southern War.
-
People first of all a Moderator note: Before you type, please think about how it sounds. Some messages here come accross as on the line of being needlessly aggressive and there's no need for that.
As to the matter at hand. The idea of the devs is to bring density back up a bit as with a too low density it will be difficult to get significant interaction between realms. Right now the density hasn't decreased that much, so the monsters will continue. I happen to agree with the devs and won't mind telling that I've been trying to get Fissoa and/or Madina to agree to move up north as well. Fissoa has ignored me since my proposal and Madina was only a recent attempt. Sure I've also been stirring stuff in Astrum against Swordfell, but that wasn't even really needed. But the problem is real, Madina and Fissoa in particular have nothing else to do even if the rogues don't come and all you can do is expand towards more rogue regions (which happened in the past) further decreasing the density.
Luria Nova and D'hara are more in between these cases, but with the north more fractured it is more difficult for LN for sure. It is difficult to pass the mountains between Astrum and LN and there is no longer any need to do so, so any form of war for LN has become very difficult and/or long travelling. On top of this you have sufficient rogue regions around you which you'll take before doing something else and this again decreases the density and doesn't promote inter realm matters.
D'hara has the see to do something, but it's still doomed to be a bastion against rogues at this point and possibly some raids later on (which actually fits with D'hara's history I thnk).
I'm not saying something is bad or not, but the fact of the matter is that interaction between realms in the south are difficult (to which the geography doesn't help, that's certainly true). Now that certainly doesn't mean you should just move your char to a new realm, you could also attempt to move your realm entirely. There is room in the north right now to do so. It wouldn't destroy your RP and history, it would add a new chapter to it, being forced out by the second great horde of Dwilight. To this day I still regret Barca not managing to establish the realm in the East, as it would have been a great new chapter for the realm.
My idea in BM is never to ignore RP, it is to build upon it and build new chapters. A chapter could be acknowledging you can't keep fighting these hordes and attempt to save the realm through other means for instance. I hope this point of view helps in any way.
-
I recall the Southern War.
I hope you aren't talking about the "when a massive multi-accounter decided to settle up in the South and invade the rest of the realms there" as being a time when those realms actually did something noteworthy.
-
Nahh, a good bit after that.
-
Nahh, a good bit after that.
You'd have to be a tad more specific. Off the top of my head, the wars I remember Madina participating in are the war against D'Hara to back up Melodia, way back in the very early days of Madina, and the war with Aurvandil+Falkirk. I believe Madina might have nominally declared war on Luria when the west was closed and we tried to relocate Barca, but I'm not even sure of that, and I don't remember any meaningful involvement.
Fissoa's about the same, minus the conflict with D'Hara and plus a few very short-lived skirmishes with Luria.
Madina is obsessed with regaining their whole island, and then some, but it just doesn't have the nobles for it. It should settle for a more post-Aurvandil division, where D'Hara held the northern rurals of the Madinian isles, which is turn would allow D'Hara to stop trying to expand eastwards into Luria like lunatics. Or even better, just ditch that dump of an island, along with Fissoa, and go settle further North, around where Asylon and Caerwyn were. Or where Westfold was.
-
I keep trying to convince them to just migrate to Swordfell en masse and just take it since Swordfell has like no defenses whatsoever.
-
Dwilight would have been much better off if, instead of closing the west, they had removed everything South of Barca and South of Askileon (i.e. half of Luria, all of Fissoa, all of Madina, and whatever was in Candiels at the time). Now, I'd have cut things even further north, with Shokalom being the southern limit in the West and the Desert-South Divide being the southern limit in the East, with D'Hara pushed North between Gold Sea and Blossomer sea.
A pity because the western realms that got removed were dynamic, while the Southern realms right now are not. Just a handful of realms struggling without a purpose. The draft Antonine did that simply adds cities would already be a huge boon though.
(https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwCyrJNDAbKuemdxYmVjU05wdlE/view)
-
I agree with the general thrust of that; however, I think that would likely not have moved enough people (even if everyone there had moved, rather than leaving).
Unfortunately, the geography of Dwilight overall is not well-suited to significant swings in player population without a strong, positive, and immediate incentive to cluster—which the game as a whole currently lacks.
-
I'd go so far as to say the game mechanics are particularly prohibitive toward such clustering. Ah, gentle equilibrium... Too much clustering and you get ultra-dense mega-realms and a whole lot of nothing beside. Too little clustering and you get a bunch of piss-poor, starving, undermanned micro-realms.
-
I get that with the decline of the player base a method was sought to nudge realms closer together; west part was closed off, large increase of monster spawns, sea travel, etc.
Well, ever since those days I have seen the realm player base drop from 30+ to 15+, definitely not increasing continent wide.
It's all fine and dandy to shout generics as 'attract more players' and 'just relocate' but that is not the issue at hand. The 'solution' is not generating the desired effect and is actually driving more players off than keeping them.
As I stated earlier, most players that up and leave that I spoke to simply state they get no enjoyment from the PvE environment that is now prominent on the continent.
As for the statement 'stop expanding', begs the question 'when is it too much?'. Not too long ago we were at 2 nobles per region ratio and still had rogue units combined over 40.000 combat strength ravaging the regions. If limitation of regions is the aim ( per realm based upon amount of nobles, for example ) then surely another solution can be found.
As for this thread, my aim is mainly to signal the devs and get some discussion started. I understand that per realm and per person the experience might differ, but I felt it necessary to report the signals I have received these last few months (year or so?).
And yes, you might disagree, but no, that is no excuse to be an ass about it. =)
-
Didn't someone mention that the ratio has always been 3?
Also, those people are stupid then. They just wanted an excuse to leave and they decided to blame PvE.
They did nothing when there weren't monsters anyway.
I don't think monsters are going away so you as a player will have to find another way to play around it.
Dwilight isn't the only continent. If you want pure PvP, you can join East Continent. Testing islands are for well testing. Can't complain when you are experiencing questionable mechanics on a testing island.
-
? Don't see anyone being an ass about anything ??? Discussion has been pretty neutral and objective, unless I'm missing something.
-
</Devil's Advocate>
...Yet you must remember that Dwilight is also the *only* truly RP-enforced island. For the more hardcore type of player, moving to another island would be a significant downgrade. Honestly, until Xavax/EC, that was my own experience with every character outside of Dwilight since 2011.
-
I agree with the general thrust of that; however, I think that would likely not have moved enough people (even if everyone there had moved, rather than leaving).
Unfortunately, the geography of Dwilight overall is not well-suited to significant swings in player population without a strong, positive, and immediate incentive to cluster—which the game as a whole currently lacks.
Combined with the current approach it could have had a more interesting result. But that's all hypothesizing and what's done is done, I concede.
I get that with the decline of the player base a method was sought to nudge realms closer together; west part was closed off, large increase of monster spawns, sea travel, etc.
Well, ever since those days I have seen the realm player base drop from 30+ to 15+, definitely not increasing continent wide.
It's all fine and dandy to shout generics as 'attract more players' and 'just relocate' but that is not the issue at hand. The 'solution' is not generating the desired effect and is actually driving more players off than keeping them.
As I stated earlier, most players that up and leave that I spoke to simply state they get no enjoyment from the PvE environment that is now prominent on the continent.
As for the statement 'stop expanding', begs the question 'when is it too much?'. Not too long ago we were at 2 nobles per region ratio and still had rogue units combined over 40.000 combat strength ravaging the regions. If limitation of regions is the aim ( per realm based upon amount of nobles, for example ) then surely another solution can be found.
As for this thread, my aim is mainly to signal the devs and get some discussion started. I understand that per realm and per person the experience might differ, but I felt it necessary to report the signals I have received these last few months (year or so?).
And yes, you might disagree, but no, that is no excuse to be an ass about it. =)
Explicitely naming your realm would help place it in context.
Also keep in mind that the monster code was bugged. For a long time, they no longer spawned, rallied, or moved. All while the realms kept spreading thinner, and thinner, and thinner. Then, the floodgates were opened. So the last invasion was not purely the density-triggered spawns, but also just the general accumulation from all that unintended peace time that was had.
Then, well... there comes a point where it's up to players to adapt to challenges brought before them. Westgard, which has a mobile army oscillating between 5000 and 20000 CS, was pro-active in this regard. When we realized that the monsters were bugged, we rushed to kill as many of them as we could. We killed the tens of thousands of CS in our realm, and then moved into rogue regions nearby, to kill tens of thousands more. We knew that as soon as the bug was fixed, they'd head for us, so we tried to lessen the load. Then, when the bug was announced to be fixed, we immediately rushed to finish our refit, move to Sabadell, and dig in. There, we stood strong, and faced about 20k of rogues every single turn, with our army of about half that, and we killed... gee, 80k CS? More? Until equipment wear wore us down to about 5k and a new 30k horde started coming in, at which point we pulled back, made more stands in Gelene Outskirts, rinse and repeat.
Point is, had we lazily just settled for taking easy regions, and then sit on our asses, we'd have lost most of our regions in this last invasion. But we made bold strategic decisions, made the right tactical calls, and with luck on our side, we came out with minimal territorial losses and an incredible military performance. So if southern realms are losing a lot of ground to the monsters, it's worth asking: why? Is it because they are facing forces that are too great? Or because they aren't making the right calls. Because for the latter, well, people deserve the consequences of their own (in)action. Because if Westgard, that has virtually no fortified location, no choke point, and is alone out in the middle of the rogue lands between a lot of the spawns and their destinations, if that realm can make it with minimal losses, why can't everyone else? Astrum did fine too. Avernus did mostly, but then again they had decided to send their army to loot rogue regions back when they hadn't even retaken all of their lands back yet. Arnor had almost died the previous time, and they came out fine. Same with Luria.
I mean, really, nobody really lost much this time around, despite the issue with the bug. Madina seems to have lost the most, but still didn't lose THAT much.
And it again returns to my original counter-argument: what else would those realms do, anyways? Back then, when the west was removed, those realms were doing a ton of things. The Moot had somewhat imploded with Terran breaking up and D'Hara annexing most of it, the north was ablaze as well, and western cities also contributed to balance with the eastern ones (the loss of the western cities seriously crippled D'Hara, for example, making Lurian hegemony greater). But none of that applies to the far-South. Madina was only dynamic during the early settlers phase. It then quickly ceased to ever be relevant again. Same for Fissoa, though that realm had a very slightly greater involvement in international politics. No matter how far back you go, up to basically a decade ago, Madina isn't relevant. Even if we go as little back as possible, before the rogue code was changed to make the rogues target low-density realms more, what was Madina doing? PVE! Madina was, wholly on its own initiative, trying to expand West as much as it could, against increasingly impossible odds. So what's the difference? Back when Madina wasn't targeted, it was going out seeking PvE. Now that it's targeted for being too sparsely populated, it's doing PvE. The code changed nothing, other than placing the equilibrium at Madina no longer holding its whole islands anymore. Which in my book is fine, the more a realm is spread, the harder it is for it to be dynamic. Lower incentives do undertake projects due to everyone having titles, increased risk-aversion (for the same reason), decrease capacity to project power abroad, etc.
-
The monsters are meant to force people to LEAVE!
If people would stop sticking out in Fissoa, Madina, D'Hara and them, then the monsters would stop and people could go to war with one another again.
When my character Gary who led Morek was threaten with destruction by Mayhem and Avernus, I had thoughts of settling in the west. I could not believe my character could gather so much support to survive. It was a tough time when Gary became Morek Ruler with the disappearance of the previous Ruler and capital loss.
If the rogues didn't attack your realms, your realms would have NOTHING to do.
Because the only realms that ever did anything are still doing so, and the only realms that are crippled by the rogues are those that never do anything anyways.
The rogues are player-driven. Stop senseless sprawl and they won't be much of an issue. If you first end your own senseless sprawl, and you see neighbors not doing so, go teach them a lesson to force them to stop expanding.
Edit: If this is about D'Hara, then it's probably the reason why it currently has the most foreign realms in its land I ever remember it having, the struggle is making D'Hara reach out more than it is known for. There are troops from at least Westgard, Morek, and Luria helping D'Hara out. It's pretty much unprecedented.
I agree much with Chenier on this part. Morek was facing 30K CS alone on our lands. Likely due to Morek has many lands access to sea. And so my character Gary innovates a bit, he led Morek army to Westgard where the rogue gather and destroy them first before the rogue come to his lands.
About D'Hara. It is difficult to see D'Hara in such conditions being hammered by rogue and many of its lands driven rogue. In honor of D'Hara alliance and support during Morek difficult times, Morek has to repay back by helping them. You help me, I help you. No surprise there :)
-
Tbh, D'Hara is doing just fine - the help from allies made a big difference to helping us fight off the monsters but generally speaking we have a good noble density and enough nobles to drive internal activity so we're pretty well off compared to Madina/Fissoa.
-
Tbh, D'Hara is doing just fine - the help from allies made a big difference to helping us fight off the monsters but generally speaking we have a good noble density and enough nobles to drive internal activity so we're pretty well off compared to Madina/Fissoa.
Madina has a psychological territorial problem. That big island is just a natural expanse for them to hold, and historically it was rather easy for them to do, despite everything else. Aurvandil aside, there was never anyone else who was ever in a position to really invade Madina, nor who really tried, so it didn't matter how bad the realm was, it was basically impossible to fail at holding the whole island. The realm has taken that territory for granted for so long, it's probably hard to accept any change to this.
But the game changed. Madina isn't as isolated at it once was. It has to up its game to be somewhat on par with the rest of the continent, because the monster threat is more diffuse and as continental denisty goes down, it pressure keeps stacking up until one of the realms (or many) start failing. It's really kind of a war by proxy. Fight the other realms by holding out longest.
Fissoa is a similar situation, minus the natural territorial expanse. Save for a few wars with Luria (which it mostly tried to avoid at all costs, due to the overwhelming odds it represented), it never really had any enemies to deal with, with Madina back door and the seas on other sides.
Both realms need to adapt, though. And not just to holding less land. These monsters, they are forcing interaction. To which you can react in many ways. You can help a realm annex another, for example, doing so can drastically reduce the density in your "ally", making him a much larger target to the next rogue invasion. You can try to reduce or destroy a realm; doing so increases the continental density, thus staving off the next monster invasion. You can try to be legitimately nice, force deal with neighbors, and collaborate. Mount organized defenses and the like, so that when the hordes strike, you fare better, or at least recuperate faster. You can go hunt the nearby rogues between the invasions, so as to lessen what will come for you when they trigger. You can invest in better RCs, walls, militia. Draw up contingency plans.
In short, you can do a ton of things about these monsters.
But if you just sit back and take for granted that you are entitled to 13-14 regions despite only having 14 nobles, yea, you might have trouble, and might grow frustrated with the results you obtain.
Arnor and Morek both have less nobles than Madina has, but from all appearances are more dynamic. It's not just about noble count.
-
To further add about the Madina island, if leaving some rogue regions was cause for concern, for whatever reason, then Madina could simply share with D'Hara and Fissoa. Would allow D'Hara to not have to expand towards Luria, which is impractical, and the same for Fissoa. Heck, if D'Hara lost Girich and Mattan Dews, it could take pretty much all of Madina's rogue regions and maintain a ratio of about 2:1 nobles per region.
I'd also point out that this used to be the case. D'Hara held the north of the Madinian isle for quite some time, after Aurvandil was vanquished.