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BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Tom on August 08, 2013, 11:36:58 AM
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This has been brought up in another topic, so let's have a quick show of hands. How many people would want to have the rogue forces increased? We're not talking about +10% but something like double.
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Less. They are a distraction from boredom and a hindrance for conflict.
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No, people are a hindrance for conflict...
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More and more. Rather than simply increase the spawn rate, also make the spawned units more powerful. At their current size, they're more nuisance than scary.
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The spawn rates should be carefully tuned, per continent, so that, at least for the time being, they become either nothing more than a useful way for knights to blood their swords during peacetime, or a real, serious threat that causes realms to shrink.
The former should not interfere with PvP conflict, but will allow a certain amount of extra action, hopefully especially for new players. The latter will, of course, interfere with PvP conflict to some extent, but will also increase the nobles-per-controlled-region ratio.
Anything in between those two levels will be a detriment to the game.
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I have voted for "something else". I still believe a human-lead invasion will bring more satisfaction than just random PvE battles against spawning monsters. Monsters are irritating but not life threatening. The only way I see it work is to crank their spawn rates up so much on the outer regions of a continent, that you basically force realms to start wars of migration to the continent's heart - just to stay safe from monsters and undead.
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Monsters are irritating but not life threatening.
Um...were you on Dwilight during the first 2-3 years of its life?
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Um...were you on Dwilight during the first 2-3 years of its life?
This. I got a border city, Aegir, in a the first few months of Dwilight. I didn't hold it long. Monster can be a huge threat. While I agree that PvP is much more fun than PvE, I think that a monster fighting role could be important and would be attractive to some players.
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Um...were you on Dwilight during the first 2-3 years of its life?
I was not, as you well know I'm a Dwilight-sceptic. ;)
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This is a good way to:
1) Increase player density by loss of regions to rogues
2) Shake up political structures, for example, the loss of large swathes of land will lead to realms falling and new ones rising. This was another issue which has been mentioned a lot (probably more) lately.
I suggest we test this on one or two islands first, as the effectivity is yet to be seen. I think it'd be interesting to severely rack up monster/undead spawns, and after a certain period of time (when entire areas are in rogue hands), lower it again. This would create a 'reconquista' effect which people seemed to like about Dwilight.
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2) Shake up political structures, for example, the loss of large swathes of land will lead to realms falling and new ones rising. This was another issue which has been mentioned a lot (probably more) lately.
This will only work well if, rather than simply raising spawn rates overall, spawn rates skyrocket in certain regions around the continent. Otherwise, as Tom has mentioned, large, prosperous realms will have little trouble putting down the spawns as they pop up, as long as they're still active realms as well. Small realms, meanwhile, will have more trouble doing that and maintaining an army.
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I voted for something else.
I would like to see an increased spawn rate for both monsters and undead in peace times. The idea of the game is to have a PvP experience. Spawns are a hindrance to that while at war.
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I voted for something else.
I would like to see an increased spawn rate for both monsters and undead in peace times. The idea of the game is to have a PvP experience. Spawns are a hindrance to that while at war.
That's a nice idea. Stay at peace too long, find yourself dealing with increasing monster and undead spawns.
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or a real, serious threat that causes realms to shrink.
If that is the case, then it should be a short-term surge of monster spawns that quickly shrink realms and is over within two or three weeks.
If spawn rates are brought to this level on the long term, then realms will do nothing but fight monsters and will be incapable of going to war against player-controlled realms. The beginning of Dwilight allowed for fun RP while people were establishing the realms' cultures and colonized the land, but there were very few wars.
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I voted for something else.
I would like to see an increased spawn rate for both monsters and undead in peace times. The idea of the game is to have a PvP experience. Spawns are a hindrance to that while at war.
That's very difficult.
How do you actually determine "peacetime" for the purposes of spawning monsters? Remember that they spawn in every region across the continent, completely independent of realms. Remember also that when a realm is fighting, most regions within it will not see battles.
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If that is the case, then it should be a short-term surge of monster spawns that quickly shrink realms and is over within two or three weeks.
If spawn rates are brought to this level on the long term, then realms will do nothing but fight monsters and will be incapable of going to war against player-controlled realms. The beginning of Dwilight allowed for fun RP while people were establishing the realms' cultures and colonized the land, but there were very few wars.
I'm afraid I can't agree with this, at all.
First of all, "two or three weeks" is an absurdly short time for such a thing to happen. If realms are to be actually shrunk within that time enough to raise the noble-to-controlled-region ratio, the spawn rates will have to be so high that we end up with titanic monster armies smashing everything in their path.
Second of all, if the spawn rates are jacked up, regions are lost, and the spawn rates go right back down, guess what will happen? Everyone will just take back those regions, thus making it a pointless effort.
It is not possible to have monsters strong enough to significantly shrink realms, and keep them shrunk, without providing the kind of threat that existed in early Dwilight.
But you know what? Even while there were monster threats, most of Dwilight was able to interact with other realms, have wars, and in general lead a mostly normal existence. It was only certain pockets (like Luria) that were cut off from all civilization pretty much until all the land was colonized.
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First of all, "two or three weeks" is an absurdly short time for such a thing to happen. If realms are to be actually shrunk within that time enough to raise the noble-to-controlled-region ratio, the spawn rates will have to be so high that we end up with titanic monster armies smashing everything in their path.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I imagined, an invasion Beluaterra-like. Maybe you spawn 100'000 CS of monsters and let them loose, and see who survives. That would shake up the status quo.
Second of all, if the spawn rates are jacked up, regions are lost, and the spawn rates go right back down, guess what will happen? Everyone will just take back those regions, thus making it a pointless effort.
It is not possible to have monsters strong enough to significantly shrink realms, and keep them shrunk, without providing the kind of threat that existed in early Dwilight.
But you know what? Even while there were monster threats, most of Dwilight was able to interact with other realms, have wars, and in general lead a mostly normal existence. It was only certain pockets (like Luria) that were cut off from all civilization pretty much until all the land was colonized.
Not Dwilight: Northeastern Dwilight, maybe. The whole western island was empty or had barely surviving realms. To reproduce this effect, you would have to raise the monsters spawns asymmetrically. You could do that of course, but this is a discussion that relates to closing islands or parts of islands.
If you did it equally everywhere, then you'd end up with pockets, kind of like Beluaterra during the invasions where all realms holed up behind walls and monsters roamed the countryside. You can't have any RvR war in these conditions.
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Increase both as well droughts. If a rogue spawn pops up there should be a good chance you will lose the region if you don't intervene in time. That creates potential for conflict over the region both internal and external.
Also I'd like to see a plague feature. It could be designed to give courtiers and/or priests more to do. You could introduce paraphenalia called plague doctors, which you send out to find and contain early outbreaks before they become a full on plague. Rumors of plague could come up in the "listen to rumors" feature. When plague breaks out they can then use police to "quarantine region" keeping the infected from moving to other regions.
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Yeah, that's pretty much what I imagined, an invasion Beluaterra-like. Maybe you spawn 100'000 CS of monsters and let them loose, and see who survives. That would shake up the status quo.
That's nothing like a Beluaterra invasion.
The closest was the Second Invasion, where the spawn rates (mostly of undead) gradually climbed to unmanageable levels, then just stayed there. For months.
Not Dwilight: Northeastern Dwilight, maybe. The whole western island was empty or had barely surviving realms. To reproduce this effect, you would have to raise the monsters spawns asymmetrically. You could do that of course, but this is a discussion that relates to closing islands or parts of islands.
Yes, it was empty, because everyone started in the east.
I'm not talking about trying to exactly replicate the conditions of early Dwilight. If spawn rates were raised all over, or in certain strategic locations (for instance, in all the mountainous areas; that would be a nice simple way to code it), that would reduce the amount of controlled land without completely preventing meaningful PvP interaction.
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in certain strategic locations (for instance, in all the mountainous areas; that would be a nice simple way to code it), that would reduce the amount of controlled land without completely preventing meaningful PvP interaction.
That would be an interesting way to do it, and I agree that it would carve up the player-controlled land in a way which would not be game-breaking.
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Just bring back "too much peace" but with a different consequence:
A realm that has not engaged in serious pvp battles in a while runs an increased risk of having a substantial rogue spawn suddenly erupting. Both the strength and the timing would need to be random to an extent.
So, if there is a lull, there is a higher risk than going to war.
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Concerning too much peace... I wonder, would it be possible to replace unit morale in the old too much peace system with the crime percentage of a region's economy?
The more battles a realm fights, the more of it's violent degenerates it drafts into service, resulting in less crime in the realm's regions and more gold. Or less.
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Increase both as well droughts. If a rogue spawn pops up there should be a good chance you will lose the region if you don't intervene in time. That creates potential for conflict over the region both internal and external.
Increasing droughts will not do anything good. Trust me.
Also I'd like to see a plague feature. It could be designed to give courtiers and/or priests more to do. You could introduce paraphenalia called plague doctors, which you send out to find and contain early outbreaks before they become a full on plague. Rumors of plague could come up in the "listen to rumors" feature. When plague breaks out they can then use police to "quarantine region" keeping the infected from moving to other regions.
That's just introducing busywork to prevent your regions from getting hurt by something random and annoying. Not likely to happen.
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Just bring back "too much peace" but
Any suggestion that starts this way is almost certain to end badly, and this one is no exception. Sorry.
Something with the same goals as Too Much Peace is on the drawing board, and will hopefully be implemented at some point. However, it will not look very much like Too Much Peace at all.
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I think spawn rates should be dependent upon noble/region density.
It could be done on a per region (probably different standard per regiontype) basis to encourage lords to actively pursue new nobles so they have enough estates filled to reduce their region's spawn rate. Or it could be based on a continent-wide nobles per realm-owned regions. Or it could even be some player per continent density to discourage players bringing a second noble into a continent to buff it up.
Regardless of specifics, I just think that undead/monster spawn rates should somehow be related to density of nobles.
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Badlands could be especially suceptibel meaning you'll need a very capable lord for them.
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Any TMP system mustn't enable any kind of vicious circle, or we're all !@#$ed again. I'm highly sceptic of any kind of TMP. In favour of more rogues, though.
How about rogue as an actual "faction"? Atypical in that way that it doesn't have a government or anything, but nobles could leave everything behind and live off of plundering for themselves. Free for all, basically (also vs monsters and undead)
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I also voted for something else. As the originator of the idea, I meant for it to have an effect similar to an Invasion. In order to stir things up every now and then, dramatically increase the spawn rates of everything until the island is swarming with them and things start to fall apart, then crank it back down. The idea would be to not let things get too settled and locked in to a particular power structure.
Maybe the strongest realms and power structures would be the ones to always survive and nothing would change, but then again maybe not. Enweil used to be the reigning power of Beluaterra, but the Invasions eventually crippled them and opened up opportunities for other realms to take their place. This is a good thing for the game. Just look at how Thalmarkin turned things around between the Fourth Invasion and the Fifth, or how Riombara came to be the dominant power in the southeast. This sort of dynamic turnover is a good thing.
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I think spawn rates should be dependent upon noble/region density.
It could be done on a per region (probably different standard per regiontype) basis to encourage lords to actively pursue new nobles so they have enough estates filled to reduce their region's spawn rate. Or it could be based on a continent-wide nobles per realm-owned regions. Or it could even be some player per continent density to discourage players bringing a second noble into a continent to buff it up.
Regardless of specifics, I just think that undead/monster spawn rates should somehow be related to density of nobles.
That brings back awful memories of the old estate system. Never again please!
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Any suggestion that starts this way is almost certain to end badly, and this one is no exception. Sorry.
I was jesting a little, of course. Now consider it on its merits without the intro.
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I was jesting a little, of course. Now consider it on its merits without the intro.
It's still a TMP clone.
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The only way I see it work is to crank their spawn rates up so much on the outer regions of a continent, that you basically force realms to start wars of migration to the continent's heart - just to stay safe from monsters and undead.
There is an interesting idea there. We could seperate them out by region or geography. For example, undead could prefer the south and monsters the north (or vice versa, or east/west - I'm just brainstorming here). And there could be "centers" of their activity, especially dangerous places, etc. That might give things more variety.
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Why not simply roll a dice a few times, and choose say 5-10 regions on continents and make those regions start being undead and monster spawning havens.
Don't point out which ones they are, and make it them spawn up within the area of those regions and not necessarily all from that region itself. Then highly increase the spawn rate there.
Make adjustments from the random initial dice roll to make sure that the spawn sections are at least somewhat evenly spread out.
Then, just make it such that by holding the central region, for X number of time, (say a month) you can start reducing the spawn rate there.
Meanwhile, double the spawn rate continent wide.
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The proper answer to this question, as with many others, is "it depends".
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Just bring back "too much peace" but with a different consequence:
A realm that has not engaged in serious pvp battles in a while runs an increased risk of having a substantial rogue spawn suddenly erupting. Both the strength and the timing would need to be random to an extent.
So, if there is a lull, there is a higher risk than going to war.
Any "TMP-like" idea like this is a bad idea, for the same reason that the TMP system was a bad idea. You are implementing penalties to being at peace in a way that makes it difficult, or impossible to go back to war. The logical response to the consequences proposed is not "Let's declare war so that we get less monster spawn", it's "OMG, pull everyone back and fight the monsters before we're wiped out!" Then the realm won't want to go back to war at all, because they're constantly dealing with the existing rogue spawn. This was the vicious cycle that TMP caused.
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My vote is "more of both", but with some qualifications.
It needs to be controlled, in such a way that it doesn't interfere too much with PvP warfare. Region-type based spawn is an interesting idea. Mountains have always been considered to be monster spawners on Dwilight.
An interesting idea might be to base it on regional noble density. The fewer knights there are holding estates in a region, or the higher the percentage of land in a region not covered by an occupied estate, the higher the spawn rate. Regions that are fully-covered by occupied estates would have essentially no spawn. As the percentage of unoccupied land goes up, so does the spawn. The important thing here is that the estate would have to be occupied by a knight to count.
This would have the effect of hitting the lowest-character-density realms hardest. i.e. realms that players don't find interesting. As regions go rogue and have no estates, they become centers of increased activity, spawning groups that spread out.
Handle the spawn rate increase in such a way that the longer the land stays unoccupied, the faster the rate accumulates. This way a short transience of low-density doesn't instantly generate huge spawns, but continuously neglecting regions eventually results in big problems.
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There is an interesting idea there. We could seperate them out by region or geography. For example, undead could prefer the south and monsters the north (or vice versa, or east/west - I'm just brainstorming here). And there could be "centers" of their activity, especially dangerous places, etc. That might give things more variety.
Oooh, I like. You could give the mountains to the trolls and the forests to the undead. So we could have some real cursed mountains and haunted forests. With narrow and long continents one could tend to occupy the other end while the other one occupies another end. Or have their "bases" roughly located there.
With big continents surrounded by seas, you could have the coastal regions spawn some strange sea creatures (or even "sea savages") that drive the characters inland.
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Increase both as well droughts. If a rogue spawn pops up there should be a good chance you will lose the region if you don't intervene in time. That creates potential for conflict over the region both internal and external.
NO. The "food game" is NO FUN when there is massive drought. Why don't you come to D'Hara, and help me (the banker) deal with the fact that the ENTIRE REALM is going to STARVE in the next week? How much fun do you think that is going to be for the players? And there's NOTHING we can do about it.
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There is an interesting idea there. We could seperate them out by region or geography. For example, undead could prefer the south and monsters the north (or vice versa, or east/west - I'm just brainstorming here). And there could be "centers" of their activity, especially dangerous places, etc. That might give things more variety.
More undead in more populated regions (cities/townslands), more monsters in rural/mountain/badlands/forests.
Oooh, I like. You could give the mountains to the trolls and the forests to the undead. So we could have some real cursed mountains and haunted forests. With narrow and long continents one could tend to occupy the other end while the other one occupies another end. Or have their "bases" roughly located there.
With big continents surrounded by seas, you could have the coastal regions spawn some strange sea creatures (or even "sea savages") that drive the characters inland.
This would be a cool way to do it--undead from the graveyards of the populated places, and just flavor text names for the monsters for mountains, forests, etc. "monsters" isn't nearly as much fun as "mountain trolls" and "werewolves from the forests".
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I don't think the spawn rates should relate to what a region is (townland, mountain, city, ...), but to the geographical location. Think the Huns invading Europe. Think triggering a gigantic movement of people as the world itself has seen in the late roman/early medieval period (4th-6th century). If you wish, be entirely arbitrary in where you make this happen. I would start by not caring about people complaining because you will always find people complaining. Just decide: "This eastern bit of this continent will have to migrate or die." Then get started.
If you want you can spread this out over pretty much all continents, and choose different points of "invasion" for each continent. Some continents which you would prefer to see vanish as opposed to others you could give a higher spawn rate, i.e. making it harder for the entire continent to survive. Because, you know, when all lands are rogue the only thing left to do is migrate - which will in return populate a different continent and allow it to survive these invasions.
The only big downside I see on this is that the "migrating" people would be forced to be absorbed into the power structures of the continent they migrate to. That may be unfair. But as suggested earlier you could arrange it so that entities of continent A get a place to live on continent B. Heck, after a while the refugees from continent A could just fulfil their destiny and carry on the invasion on continent B - without the need of monsters or undead.
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An interesting idea might be to base it on regional noble density. The fewer knights there are holding estates in a region, or the higher the percentage of land in a region not covered by an occupied estate, the higher the spawn rate. Regions that are fully-covered by occupied estates would have essentially no spawn. As the percentage of unoccupied land goes up, so does the spawn. The important thing here is that the estate would have to be occupied by a knight to count.
This would have the effect of hitting the lowest-character-density realms hardest. i.e. realms that players don't find interesting. As regions go rogue and have no estates, they become centers of increased activity, spawning groups that spread out.
Handle the spawn rate increase in such a way that the longer the land stays unoccupied, the faster the rate accumulates. This way a short transience of low-density doesn't instantly generate huge spawns, but continuously neglecting regions eventually results in big problems.
The issue with basing it on character density is the same issue that the old estate system had. Realms will consider that they have an optimal size and will not want to enter any war once they have reached it, since gaining lands would only trigger monster spawns.
With a density-based system in place, Niselur would have been overcome by monsters and would never have been able to start the current war. We'd have more peace than now.
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More of both.
I like region based spawning rates especially. Badlands and mountains and forests are natural places for monsters to come from (it's in all the fairy tales). Also the idea about connecting it to knights or estates is appealing, giving a good reason for knights to exist and an incentive to huddle together with other characters in smaller, tight-knit realms.
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I vote for much more. There is nothing wrong in many regions go rogue, even complete realms falling for not being able to balance regular wars with rouge fighting. If you cannot do both, prioritize!
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I think spawn rates should be dependent upon noble/region density.
That is actually a pretty interesting idea. It would serve to wipe realms that are mostly empty off the map faster. I would go one step further and count PLAYERS per region so simply dumping a drone character in your favorite realm doesn't change things.
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In order to stir things up every now and then, dramatically increase the spawn rates of everything until the island is swarming with them and things start to fall apart, then crank it back down. The idea would be to not let things get too settled and locked in to a particular power structure.
As everyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows, I am no longer a friend of invasions. However, I do like the idea of not simply raising spawn rates, but change them in waves. So instead of rogues being a constant, low-level nuisance the way they are today, there would be times of increased and times of lowered spawn rates, much like the weather.
Definitely a step forward.
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This would have the effect of hitting the lowest-character-density realms hardest.
It would also provide a disincentive to realms to conquer additional regions unless they are overflowing with nobles. I'm not yet sure if that's a good or a bad thing, but it should be taken into consideration.
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It would also provide a disincentive to realms to conquer additional regions unless they are overflowing with nobles. I'm not yet sure if that's a good or a bad thing, but it should be taken into consideration.
Personally, I think simply raising player density may provide enough extra fun and engagement to most realms that our retention rate will improve enough to begin expanding again.
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If its based upon density, with current density rates, I wouldn't be surprised to see several realms die and rogue wastelands to arise. We are discussing sinking/freezing islands, after all. With more people crowded in less regions, I'm sure that wars will develop to conquer additional regions. With people spread across more regions, its easier to carve out your domain; with more people in less regions, you'll need to do more to move up the social hierarchy with more competition.
This would be a self-enforcing mechanism for density issues. If a continent is so unpopular that it can't sustain enough players to populate it, its probably time to retire it. If an island has so many players that gold is becoming scarce, then its time for them to get to colonize a new/former island. Let the islands with the most players get to create/immigrate a character to any new/reborn islands.
If I had a character in a realm that wanted to go to war, but feared conquering more regions would result in more rogues to fight off, I'd have a number of solutions.
- Convince foreign adventurers to betray their realm for yours; simultaneously organize your adventurers to hunt the rogues in a cohesive fashion. The spawn rates might be increased, but if you've got a good set of adventurers hunting, then it will be less of a concern and you can spot developing problems beforehand. Put ranged militia in several regions to handle rogues automatically.
- Have a designated rogue patrol army coordinating with the adventurers.
- Point out that more glory-seeking nobles will probably join the realm since you're fighting a war, which is perfect for occupying the new regions
- Rogues provide nice battle experience for newer players
- Have an ally thats either too far away or uninterested in your war? Convince the to patrol some/all of your regions for rogues
Not going to war because you reached 'optimal' status of rogue spawns and don't think the benefits of new regions outweigh the increased rogue spawn rate is just silly. If anything, you'd probably start losing players from boredom and then you'd have the problem you wanted to avoid in the first place and no new regions. Plus, I don't think there would be something informing you if you reached 'optimal' density. It'll just happen. Nor do I think there'd ever be a point of *no* rogue spawning for optimal density; there's always rogue spawns to deal with.
But it is a way of rewarding realms people find fun (whether they're large or small), counteracting boring realms, and ensuring there's a certain density of players that makes the game fun. I *really* miss BM's more dense days; some of the most fun I've had in a text-based game. :)
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Doesn't that mean this is a good idea Vita?
Just trying to understand what you're saying.
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I absolutely think its a good idea, considering I suggested it. :)
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As everyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows, I am no longer a friend of invasions. However, I do like the idea of not simply raising spawn rates, but change them in waves. So instead of rogues being a constant, low-level nuisance the way they are today, there would be times of increased and times of lowered spawn rates, much like the weather.
Definitely a step forward.
Yes, precisely. My hope would be that the waves at their height would be powerful enough to at least partially upset existing power structures and thereby create a significant amount of chaos, and therefore opportunities. I also like the direction that some people were going in of having the increased spawns localized in some fashion, preferably a random one so that the same realms aren't always the ones getting socked.
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It would be easy to select new random "hotspots" for every new wave or something so that other people feal the heat every time.
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On the subject of increased spawn rates during prolonged peace time: Perhaps add a third rogue faction, and make them human raiders, bandits, brigands or whatever name is most pleasing. The reasoning behind it would be that realms that don't display the might of their armies every now and then will see their criminals grow bolder and bolder, to a point where they start banding together, first into smaller, relatively weak bands, but if left unchecked, into sizable contingents of well-armed, bloodthirsty warriors that loot and pillage any region they're in.
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realms that don't display the might of their armies every now and then
Define that in PHP and SQL before you continue the thought. We have had a thousand ideas all based around these soft factors that are really, really hard to code. TMP was one failed attempt at doing so.
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I think the spawn rate is about right, but should be less random.
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having a random leader of the monsters and undead that can boost there attack strength and give them fighting tactics would be interesting. That would make them harder to defeat. I would even go so far at random times and regions for the undead/monster push to take over a region and if done successfully start spawning more units attempting to take over the regions nearby. Not to much it becomes the norm but a reason for a realm to go, crap. That weakness could create opportunities for other realms to engage in a war with a larger realm.
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having a random leader of the monsters and undead that can boost there attack strength and give them fighting tactics would be interesting. That would make them harder to defeat. I would even go so far at random times and regions for the undead/monster push to take over a region and if done successfully start spawning more units attempting to take over the regions nearby. Not to much it becomes the norm but a reason for a realm to go, crap. That weakness could create opportunities for other realms to engage in a war with a larger realm.
Rogues can already start taking over regions, as witnessed on Dwilight. The other part is interesting though. Would the rogue region taken over by the rogue monsters/undead be different to normal rogue regions?
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having a random leader of the monsters and undead that can boost there attack strength and give them fighting tactics would be interesting. That would make them harder to defeat. I would even go so far at random times and regions for the undead/monster push to take over a region and if done successfully start spawning more units attempting to take over the regions nearby. Not to much it becomes the norm but a reason for a realm to go, crap. That weakness could create opportunities for other realms to engage in a war with a larger realm.
Rogues can already start taking over regions, as witnessed on Dwilight. The other part is interesting though. Would the rogue region taken over by the rogue monsters/undead be different to normal rogue regions?
That is a very good question, I think I have an idea for it, since undead/monsters pretty much eat the people or kill them they would only have a finite life in that Region before they starved but in the mean time they spawn more and more till there supply runs out. Time will be different for each region as a commander could regulate that control and lacking a leader provides a faster death rate. Leaderless undead/monsters would tend to be weaker in fighting force (always in a hurry no training to grow) compared to a commander type region that provides the best fighters, the best organizing, and the most challenge. Random rolls for strength of leadership would be fun also. That way you get varying degrees of challenge when/if this occurs.
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Define that in PHP and SQL before you continue the thought. We have had a thousand ideas all based around these soft factors that are really, really hard to code. TMP was one failed attempt at doing so.
Tie it in with the Realm Glory attribute perhaps?
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There is an interesting idea there. We could seperate them out by region or geography. For example, undead could prefer the south and monsters the north (or vice versa, or east/west - I'm just brainstorming here). And there could be "centers" of their activity, especially dangerous places, etc. That might give things more variety.
100% Agree I think that is a great idea make coastal regions dangerous as such or even center regions. Possible a migration during certain season would be a interesting concept as well, but it's a concept.
If this is given how about mm say naming such npcs pirates (cutthorats, seabandits etc), that harass coastal regions. It bring a interesting dynamic to the game, possible some added rp can come from the flavor of it. But in reality they are simply just monster/class npcs with varying names.
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100% Agree I think that is a great idea make coastal regions dangerous as such
The Deep Ones cometh.
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As everyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows, I am no longer a friend of invasions. However, I do like the idea of not simply raising spawn rates, but change them in waves. So instead of rogues being a constant, low-level nuisance the way they are today, there would be times of increased and times of lowered spawn rates, much like the weather.
Definitely a step forward.
Ooh, yes. This is the thing. Rogue spawn could be much rarer, but when they hit, they should definitely require your attention. The analogy to weather is good. It is not constant and predictable, even if it has its trends - and it does not hit every place with equal severity. At times there are horrible storms with equally horrible consequences, but they are rare.
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NO. The "food game" is NO FUN when there is massive drought. Why don't you come to D'Hara, and help me (the banker) deal with the fact that the ENTIRE REALM is going to STARVE in the next week? How much fun do you think that is going to be for the players? And there's NOTHING we can do about it.
This is the reason I paused my Dwilight character. IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR. The stress of trying to feed a city as big as Golden Farrow is insane.
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Define that in PHP and SQL before you continue the thought. We have had a thousand ideas all based around these soft factors that are really, really hard to code. TMP was one failed attempt at doing so.
This could happen when RC centers overflow. If you recruit regularly, you don't have troubles. If the centers are filled and not getting recruited, eventually they set out on their own as bandits.
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This could happen when RC centers overflow. If you recruit regularly, you don't have troubles. If the centers are filled and not getting recruited, eventually they set out on their own as bandits.
love this idea
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This could happen when RC centers overflow. If you recruit regularly, you don't have troubles. If the centers are filled and not getting recruited, eventually they set out on their own as bandits.
Players will drop soldiers and recruit from the RCs just enough to prevent this, then. You have to think about people intentionally trying to counter your mechanic, because they will.
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Players will drop soldiers and recruit from the RCs just enough to prevent this, then. You have to think about people intentionally trying to counter your mechanic, because they will.
People will try to counter just about any mechanic. It's part of human nature.
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Players will drop soldiers and recruit from the RCs just enough to prevent this, then. You have to think about people intentionally trying to counter your mechanic, because they will.
If you recruit just enough to prevent the appearance of rogues, then you are building up a large, strong army, which is the point: force people to spend their gold on military so that they will easily go to war, instead of weakening them so that they won't want to.
if they then drop their troops.... I don't know how you could prevent that. A realm which will go to such extremes will never wage war, whatever we do.
Another example would be a realm that would rather close their RCs rather than recruit from them. It sounds crazy, but probably it would happen.
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NO. The "food game" is NO FUN when there is massive drought. Why don't you come to D'Hara, and help me (the banker) deal with the fact that the ENTIRE REALM is going to STARVE in the next week? How much fun do you think that is going to be for the players? And there's NOTHING we can do about it.
I really hate how the economy rebalance is lagging so much.
We finally get a war with Luria Nova, and we'll just starve to death again, Long Winter #2.
If continents can't be brought to have viable levels of food production, then food should be made much less of a "have or die" resource. It takes YEARS to rebuild regions that starved for just a week or so. And these regions revolt incredibly quickly.
Let's think about history here... there were much starvation in the middle ages. Did it cause so much widespread anarchy? I don't think so... Perhaps food should be made just less important. Instead of starvation killing a region off in a few days, it could just slowly depopulate it over months. That way, whenever a drought comes, it doesn't put an end to all player conflicts...
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I really hate how the economy rebalance is lagging so much.
So do I, but when one of the two main people working on it moves across the country and gets a new job, it's not going to go forward as quickly as we hoped. Especially when the other main person working on it has 3,001 other things to work on in BattleMaster alone.
If continents can't be brought to have viable levels of food production, then food should be made much less of a "have or die" resource. It takes YEARS to rebuild regions that starved for just a week or so. And these regions revolt incredibly quickly.
I've got some stuff planned for that, too. But I can't program everything at once.
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I choose the missing option: leave monster and undead spawn rates the way they are.
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We will play more and more against the game instead of against fellows players. I cannot roleplay with monsters. I can just go there and kill them. I cannot dispute with them. Just kill them. And even killing them, the credit to kill a code is nothing like fight against a human player. While we can improve the situation of monsters/undead to something more dynamic, I don't like the idea of Invasions in every continent.
What we will say after win and survive against a horde? That we won against Tom!? While this game is not about win the game, wars are about it... and with more monsters, we will keep more and more people in defensive armies, fighting less and less against another realms.
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As has been pointing out Dwilight once had incredibly large monster hordes and we still managed to have plenty of wars. The key is to simply tailor the feature so that it will most likely threaten one or two regions. That's enough to weaken a realm a little but not so much that people will turtle up and shun war with any other realms. Plus if a couple regions go rogue the neighboring region might just decide that the realm which lost them doesn't deserve to have them back.
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Well, in Dwilight it was mostly the rogue regions that spawned the nastiest hordes, so borders were generally dangerous grounds. Perhaps we could start by cranking up spawn rates in rogue lands on other islands?
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How about this:
When a city falls from realm control whilst there are rogue troops present, have a possibility that it will turn into a citadel of the undead. It will be harder to regain it, as the undead would even use the walls of the city (but would not repair them). The city would also then become a hotspot for spawning. Though perhaps the undead from the city would generally not wander all that far from their home. Maybe the same for the towns.
The point? Making it more challenging to regain lost cities. Because PvE can be fun and a source of RP history too, especially in the absence of PvP wars.
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As for the idea of tying spawn rates to war activity: it could be something that does not have a certain definite threshold. It would not be an "on/off" switch. Instead having your realm involved in PvP battles would reduce the likelihood of a spawn hotspot forming inside your realm. So, some would game the system and make mock wars. So what? They might always escalate, and beat the stuffing out of just waiting for something to happen. And you would never get a message indicating the effect of your battles on the spawn chance.
Yes, it could then happen that in the middle of a really exciting war with lots of battles there might still be a hotspot forming inside your realm that would totally ruin the war for you. Or, despite a long time of peace, there might not be any hotspots in your realm at all. It could happen, but it beats it being totally random.
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Less / no change.
Would be fine to have some sort of more detailed spawn fluctuation like weather or region type or whatever, but this game is PVP not PVE. Monsters being a bigger nuisance just means more militia per region, which is uninteresting. Monsters which have to be dealt with by the main army is stupid PVE and can turn wars on a coinflip.
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As has been pointing out Dwilight once had incredibly large monster hordes and we still managed to have plenty of wars.
I disagree. There are much more wars now, and Dwilight is better off for it.
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No change.
Unless Undead/monster spawns are cranked up to a ridiculous level, it wont change much if anything at all.
People will just respond to it by dropping more militia and having a bigger home army, both which I dont see promoting wars.
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I disagree. There are much more wars now, and Dwilight is better off for it.
Maybe right this moment, but that's after a period of relative stagnation. Dwilight was more vibrant back when it was a struggle just to get your realm through the winter intact.
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It's very different when you have an empty world to fight against than survive in a consolidate realm facing invasions. We will see BT again, with everyone making peace to fight the hordes and then resume the normal wars after that.
Really!????
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I disagree. There are much more wars now, and Dwilight is better off for it.
My point was that Dwilight had wars and massive monster hordes at the same time. There's no reason to suggest slightly higher rogue spawns will bring wars on other islands to a grinding halt.
Maybe right this moment, but that's after a period of relative stagnation. Dwilight was more vibrant back when it was a struggle just to get your realm through the winter intact.
That's the beauty of it really. People complained about the stagnation caused by the SA alliance. They forget that big alliances lead to big wars.
It's like setting up dominos just to knock them all over. The more time you spend setting them up the more amazing it is when they all topple.
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My point was that Dwilight had wars and massive monster hordes at the same time. There's no reason to suggest slightly higher rogue spawns will bring wars on other islands to a grinding halt.
That's the beauty of it really. People complained about the stagnation caused by the SA alliance. They forget that big alliances lead to big wars.
It's like setting up dominos just to knock them all over. The more time you spend setting them up the more amazing it is when they all topple.
Big alliances usually lead to gang bangs, not large wars. All you have to do is go see Atamara for the result. What you're seeing on Dwilight is the complete breakdown of the SA alliance.
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Interesting comments, thank you all.
I believe we should begin by making the islands more different in terms of monsters and undead. Reducing the rate on some islands, while keeping it on others and raising it on still others. This gives us more variety and it also gives us actual experience with what different levels feel like.
The funny thing is:
The code for this already exists and the rates are already different. Apparently, not so much that anyone really noticed.
This particluar idea continued here:
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,5006.0.html
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How about this:
When a city falls from realm control whilst there are rogue troops present, have a possibility that it will turn into a citadel of the undead. It will be harder to regain it, as the undead would even use the walls of the city (but would not repair them). The city would also then become a hotspot for spawning. Though perhaps the undead from the city would generally not wander all that far from their home. Maybe the same for the towns.
A better twist on this, imo, would be for rogue regions to spawn peasant militias and even recruit rogue militias from their RCs, when available, to help defend the region from conquerors. When in sufficient numbers (their cost to maintain is greater than their potential production), they send rogue troops out to neighboring lands. Basically, monster code with human rogue troops.
My point was that Dwilight had wars and massive monster hordes at the same time. There's no reason to suggest slightly higher rogue spawns will bring wars on other islands to a grinding halt.
Let's not forget here that rogue spawns were NOT uniform. Realms like Springdale had really few, whereas realms like D'Hara and Terran had a tonload. Realms like Terran and D'Hara also do not have a history of initiating any conflicts, and were peaceful realms for most of their history. For years, it really was PvE.
I'm not saying that rogue spawns are bad... but let's not overgeneralize here with simplistic comments like "when there were lots of rogues, there were lots of wars". Because there weren't lots of rogues everywhere, and there weren't lots of war everywhere either.
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A better twist on this, imo, would be for rogue regions to spawn peasant militias and even recruit rogue militias from their RCs, when available, to help defend the region from conquerors. When in sufficient numbers (their cost to maintain is greater than their potential production), they send rogue troops out to neighboring lands. Basically, monster code with human rogue troops.
If the rogue peasants could use the RC's, that would be fantastic.
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If the rogue peasants could use the RC's, that would be fantastic.
Oooh, that would be quite nasty. They would be the local "freedom fighters". So a strong RC would become a little more like the proverbial two-edged sword.
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That would suck, spending thousands of gold on that perfect RC and it turns on you.
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That would suck, spending thousands of gold on that perfect RC and it turns on you.
And it would be your fault for raising the taxes too high, etc.
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Big alliances usually lead to gang bangs, not large wars. All you have to do is go see Atamara for the result.
That's how it goes down on Atamara for two main reasons:
1. Atamara is smaller so there's nowhere for resistance to safely fester (On Dwilight Aurvandil was an Anti Astroist bastion, sure the king was cheating but even without that everyone who hated Astroism could settle there in relative safety. I believe Barca continues to reject SA)
2. Atamaran players don't take enough risks. Remember this war couldn't have happened if Turin weren't launching foolhardy expeditions to the other side of the continent. Furthermore it couldn't have happened if Leopold didn't have the guts to put it all on the line and declare war on Astrum.
What you're seeing on Dwilight is the complete breakdown of the SA alliance.
I wouldn't say it's a breakdown of the alliance just yet but certainly of the alliance's dominion over the continent.
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It's not that people haven't displayed the guts to take on the big power block on Atamara. It's just that when they did, they sorely lacked in the execution department. Bad coordination and internal bickering among the attackers allowed the Cagilan block to resist them and all but defeat them over time.
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What is the point of this? Making it harder to take back lost regions? There are no interesting PVE solutions. If rogue militia are very difficult, you just set the tax rate low and never spawn them, and never make an RC in an unstable region. If they are small they are dealt with by militia. If the militia can't handle it, take your army over and squish it.
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Include a random chance that it will pop up in a perfectly fine region coupled with the fact that enemy infiltrators can be behind uprisings and the feature becomes a lot more useful and interesting.
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I really hate how the economy rebalance is lagging so much.
We finally get a war with Luria Nova, and we'll just starve to death again, Long Winter #2.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It's funny because you think D'hara could be sufficent ever.
Reality check: Six rurals for 4 cities, 3 townslands, and a stronghold? The only way that would ever work is with a continental surplus on the order of Beluaterra.
Words and things from Tom about hating invasions
I still don't understand why you hate invasions, or why the fact that you hated running one means they shouldn't happen at all.
I loved working on the fourth invasion, even with one of the other GMs actively refusing to work with and undermining the rest of us, and I would love to do it again. I've said as much to you before and have never gotten even a word in reply.
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I still don't understand why you hate invasions, or why the fact that you hated running one means they shouldn't happen at all.
I loved working on the fourth invasion, even with one of the other GMs actively refusing to work with and undermining the rest of us, and I would love to do it again. I've said as much to you before and have never gotten even a word in reply.
Seconded.
If you gave the go-ahead, I can tell you for certain that I would be happy to work with a small, select group to get a proper, coherent invasion going, one where we actually plan for the players' decision-points, and have laid out from the beginning what the "win conditions" and "loss conditions" should look like. I have all the admin power I would need to run such a thing properly, assuming that we didn't need extra code. (Or that you would be pushing updates live on a regular basis, as you have been recently.) And though I prefer not to speak for others, I would bet that ^ban^ would be fully on board.
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Yes to more Invasions, plz. I enjoyed the Fifth, but what I most enjoy is how they shake things up on Beluaterra and keep it from getting too settled. I would also be willing to GM one.
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Last Invasion was really awesome :) Beluaterra won't be the same without the invasions :o
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Invasions are probably enjoyable for people that are really involved in this game (i.e. people posting on the forum), but I think to most innocent noble bystanders they are pretty underwhelming.
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Invasions are probably enjoyable for people that are really involved in this game (i.e. people posting on the forum), but I think to most innocent noble bystanders they are pretty underwhelming.
That's partly why they don't exist on 5 out of the 6 islands.
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Huh. That does not compute. Invasions are life or death situations, whether you care about the story behind it or not. Even the most innocent noble bystander cares at least a bit about the future of his realm and the place of his character therein. And even if that noble is really just a bystander and nothing else, he'll appreciate battles of epic scale and frequency.
It'd make sense if you said that for nobles who are into diplomacy and intrigue invasions are dull since they are PvE in stead of PvP, but "innocent noble bystanders" aren't those who are looking to advance themselves or their realms through intrigue. Those guys are the ones who do frequent the forum.
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If I'd been here a couple of hours ago I would have voted "something else"...
I like the idea of less spawnings, but the spawnings, when they do happen, being more significant.
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I missed the vote, but would have put my say toward "something else".
I say retweak the spawn of monsters/undead. They seem largely random right now. Mountain/badlands/forests should spawn monsters at an increased rate (but farmlands/city/towns almost none), cities should spawn undead at an increased rate and maybe (although this is more effort-intensive) an increased rate for recent battlegrounds.
This way you have increased spawn rates, but they are focused on regions that aren't profitable. Players have a choice to abandon those mountains to the brigands or to toil to see them stay under control.
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More of both for Atamara. I don't think I've seen any in nearly 6 months.