Messages

16

Development / Improved army chest

« on: May 29, 2014, 07:32:59 PM »

over many complaints i would currently have, I feel need to favorize at least one: gold distribution scheme utterly needs some improvement.

army chest could, for instance, be used for all sponsors to send funds to it, and army nobles should be able to withdraw proportionally to their honor, prestige, some internal army rating, and use that gold for recruitment.

i feel current begging for funds each and every week is possibly the most annoying and boring aspect of playing.

17

BM General Discussion / Re: Updated IR Comments

« on: May 10, 2014, 04:46:07 PM »

We have recently seen people cherry-picking messages out-of-context in attempts to abuse the Titan system as a way to punish their in-game rivals. This rule is intended to clarify our intentions and make it more difficult to create IR abuses out of generic comments, which was never the intention of the IRs.

At the same time, we are now cracking down on abusive Titan reports.

It would be nice to know whether people who are doing that are sending similar-tone messages in short time period to Titans? As far as I remember it worked for years - groups tightly coordinated ooc send bunch of messages to titans, and titans take such quantity as an important factor in the case, something like "many players complain against ..."

for years there is need that titans separate "many players" from ooc-group who actually does classic spamming. and that can be done with proper, not too demanding investigation.

maybe there would be no need for this tread is something like that is being done. currently, any, even smaller group who is well-coordinated ooc can wreck havoc continentwise whenever they desire it.

18

BM General Discussion / Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?

« on: April 13, 2014, 03:50:13 PM »

in my current post there is no word that points dev team, i'm just mentioning what i can see on casual visits to forum, it has been long-spread thesis on forum players like "the most valuable" players, i don't know who initiated it and who supports it, but it certainly affects those who hang on forums, one way or another, more or less.

i don't know why would it be so troublesome to put some voting polls at login page, before login, where news are posted?

the same way, i don't know why in-game mentors are disbanded so the only way for new players to learn about game in methodical way is through forums, so new player must stick to forums if they want to pass through basic learnings.

it's significant to see that no any new player asks about glacier, how that's possible, one would expect that at least some of them would be surprised.

19

BM General Discussion / Re: Number of Players Lost Since Glacier?

« on: April 12, 2014, 05:28:40 PM »

Anaris. Let's say this very straight.
The polls were not IC, they were on the forum.
On the forum are only active players.
So only active players voted.

I would be more precise and say "on forums are only those who like forums". There has been long time since players who dislike forums are announced to be "second-grade" players, and they even cannot act against such devaluing - as all discussions go through forums.

20

BM General Discussion / Re: What prevents game to be competitive... i.e. to be a game.

« on: January 06, 2014, 08:47:05 PM »

To be competitive it is essential for all players to operate on the same time scale. The fundamental time unit of the game is the "turn" and there should be no way that the timing of a character's activity within that  unit is significant. That is to say "real time" factors should not influence the gameplay.   
One obvious way they do is the obsession for early military orders. There can be no doubt orders issued early in the turn will be received by more characters than late ones and therefore overall response rate will probably be influenced.
The simple answer is for all actions, including messaging, to be resolved at the start of the next turn.

i have a feeling that, unfortunately, you equals concept of competitiveness with concept of military effectiveness.

this is far from what i had in mind when initiating this post. under competitiveness it was meant - political competitiveness in first place - ability of different power players to exert their power in different way, depending on their positions, and that way create internal political dynamics.

i'm not surprised, though, if you have only military achievements in mind - monolithic realms with dead internal political life dominate on continents with possible tendencies to totally prevail.

i feel that is exactly where concept of competitiveness would bring most fruits to the game - if such concepts would be encouraged, overly large and rich realms would naturally tend to dissipate as every realm would have more power players - in very large realms such players would be powerful enough to grow their ambitions. if, however, we don't have enough competitive position within a realm, oppositions never grow.

21

BM General Discussion / Re: Wounds worsening or mechanics harassing players.

« on: January 06, 2014, 08:32:58 PM »

i always believed it is more human to kill character than to harass it that way, pushing patience to the very limits.

if i have in-game reasons to retain some character, i will retain it, otherwise it makes no sense to play at all.

such a concept is similar in some other materializations and in my humble opinion, it counters basic logics of playing - formally, we have multitude of choices, but in reality we are heavily pushed to make one and one only choice. it really degrades playability - are we allowed to create some small stories with our puppets, with all limits which anyhow exist, or we, players are puppets of game mechanics? 

22

BM General Discussion / Wounds worsening or mechanics harassing players.

« on: January 05, 2014, 08:23:01 PM »

With wounds improving and worsening three times (!), effectively removing character from the game for the week's time, I have to ask the public what is the whole point of such "feature".

Logging once to see that wounds worsened, next time it improved, than worsened again, and three times in such a manner. Is that an ultimate test of player's patience  ?

23

Feature Requests / Re: Recruitment related to diplomatic relations

« on: December 06, 2013, 10:45:36 PM »

well, if there is any interest to further think on that, a wider discussion could be open.

if you find out exploiting scenario as you mention, would it not be incentive to make some other changes to diplomacy system. for instance, weight could be mostly given to neighboring realms, not distant realms. relations to distant realms are anyhow quite senseless - in my personal view - similarly to "teleport" wars.

was it ever discussed that realms, for instance, cannot wage wars within anyone else but neighbors? that could possibly remove some current "illogical" things in diplomacy. among the worst in current situation - though i could count more than one - are weak small realms that are inferior to neighbors, but have all neighbors as friends. instead of senseless sending troops over the whole continent width just to find some amusement to nobles, such realms should either try to ally with one neighbor against another - or simply disappear, which should be much more logical course of events than it is now - in my view.

as regards to wounds worsening, with all good intention in trying to see it as  intent to give more realistic feel, i feel nothing else but thorn in my side. previously you would be wounded little or much, which is random, and than you would have some stable course of healing. currently it really feels as harassment - after few days of healing wounds worsen again, and that lasts for the whole week effectively putting character out of any game.

i personally feel it would be much more fair to simply kill character through random game mechanics, than harass it just to create - in my view - fake feeling how player has a choice. there are some of my characters which i would never shut down naturally, and if i do so only because i cannot stand game-created harassment, i really don't feel it was my choice - i was forced to do that because of mechanics' bullying.

it is even worse that i do not see that only old characters suffer from that. every of my chars which are even moderately experienced suffer from wounding most of time. that practically means my characters are forced to leave the game right in the moment when they gained sensibly high skills, recognition within some realm etc. at the age of 40.
that does not make sense, really, that is in vile contraction with any attempt to develop stable long-term career, which is "promised" by many other game elements. i see only glum atmosphere where nobles in age of 35 are making last attempts to accomplish something before being sentenced to endless wounding. moreover, what accomplishments should there be? i am pretty sure i am not the only player who finds no joy in quick rush after titles.

24

Feature Requests / Re: Recruitment related to diplomatic relations

« on: December 05, 2013, 07:13:08 PM »

that makes no sense to me at all.

i don't know what "empty war" should mean? would someone count how many battles are waged within a week to declare some war is "empty" or not?

currently i am involved in at least two realms in war where there were no a single battle in a month time for different in-game reasons.

instead of giving weight to player-tailored diplomacy, we have situation where majority of diplomacy influence is related to random-generated peasants mood toward realms. diplomats should spend majority of their time to fight brainless ai-machinery.

not only with diplomacy, the same things is with building shutting down in regions for no any traceable reason. and on top of it there is "wounds worsening", which looks as designed to repel players from bm, at least that is how i feel it.

25

Feature Requests / Recruitment related to diplomatic relations

« on: November 23, 2013, 07:09:55 PM »

How complex would it be if diplomatic relations would influence recruitment abilities?

Details
When realm A is in war with realm B, in regions where peasants hate realm B recruits would have higher morale, and more recruits would be trained per day. Counter-effect is bellowed realm is attacked.
Of course, when realm is also in war with realm C, who is loved by some peasants, in such regions effect would balance each other.
It is only my assumption that it's not overly complex to code when there are already peasants' diplomatic mood in place for every region.

Benefits
It would add little more depth and complexity, and most importantly, it would put more weight on diplomacy in overall. That would not actually be revolutionary change, but just enhancement of existing "regional diplomacy" feature

26

Helpline / Re: banker's profit

« on: November 11, 2013, 08:15:06 PM »

Try that in Luria.

I dare you.

that way, i assume, you are telling me that luria is tyranny where rural lords are pawns who just follow orders about what to do with food?!

i would even dare to say that current tweaks in mechanics somewhat failed if on the continent like dwilight, where food possibly means much more than anything else, rural lords have no any chance to become more powerful and influential.

27

Helpline / Re: banker's profit

« on: November 11, 2013, 08:11:24 PM »

Then post sell orders (auto or otherwise) and let him purchase from you, and then sell it to the cities for a profit. If you make your offer lower than what the cities are buying for, then you both profit.

that rarely works. limited trade distance and other duties that occupy lords mostly leaves all offers unanswered forever. if i could trade myself, i would not engage banker.

28

Helpline / Re: banker's profit

« on: November 11, 2013, 08:08:42 PM »

This is the kind of attitude that leads to cities starving for no good reason.

Which, in turn, leads to the realm in general getting less gold, and being less able to participate in wars and other fun things.

i don't understand whether you disagree or agree with my previous statement?

i am talking exactly about that, lords should have some incentive to make good trade deals, which would in turn help realms in overall. if lords has nothing but give up of his command of trade, what is point of trade game at all, than?

it is well known that rural lords have low income, and i believed tweaks of trade system aimed to correct that in some way. however, i don't see it in reality now. if lords see their large food amount are simply given up, while they have to beg for gold for their even basic needs, and knights run away from them, there is very little incentive to both attempt any trade and be rural lord at all.

i daresay trade system fails that way. than lords could be completely stripped of food command. shouldn't mechanics push both sides to cooperate - or wage conflicts - to move things forward?

29

Helpline / Re: banker's profit

« on: November 08, 2013, 09:52:59 PM »

i would firstly like to share profit with banker.

i don't get why any rural lord would have interest to give everything to banker. no time to make deals? let food rot than. and this happens as much as i see, number of rulers and bankers frequently call lords to do something with their food, but response is low.

i don't understand how rural lords can have any meaningful profit this way...

30

BM General Discussion / Re: Religion

« on: November 07, 2013, 09:33:13 PM »

If we have multiple levels of religion taxes how will that work?

i was thinking about realm-level taxation of religions, while allowing it to be different for different religions.