BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => Development => Topic started by: Tom on February 06, 2012, 11:14:43 AM
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stable and testing have been growing further and further apart over the past months.
I plan to change that and return BM to something more similar to the ways it used to be. That means testing receiving things first, with them moving to stable as soon as they are, well, stable. Not two years later.
This means picking one moment and updating stable to what testing is right now. That moment is not yet come, as there are still too many bugs on testing, but it is coming.
This means a huge amount of changes for stable, all in one go. New estate system, new trade system, new taxes, food - well, everything. I will announce that some time before it happens, but I wanted to give you a warning as early as possible that it is going to happen.
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I'm really looking forward to some of these changes on stable, Tom!
Any estimate as to when you think it'll be ready?
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Really looking forward to new estate system on FEI ;D
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Any estimate as to when you think it'll be ready?
when it's stable again. There's a few elusive bugs that I absolutely want fixed before doing that.
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I think, though, that it's important not to push new features to stable just because they've been on testing for a while without blowing things up.
I'm thinking specifically of things like the new dynamic map. It's not a finished feature, so it should stay in testing until it is finished.
Other than that, I'm all for this. Once stuff has shaken out on testing for a maximum of a month or so, it should go to stable. Most stuff shouldn't need more than a few days to a week to make sure it's not going to cause massive issues.
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That's where we have different development philosophies, Tim. :-)
I don't think "stable" should be behind testing too much, no matter how finished or unfinished things are - BM is never finished anyways. There are many reasons for this, the most important is that it's twice as hard to learn a game that has different sets of rules in different parts. There is a lot of confusion on both testing islands now for people moving there from stable islands. Requests for oaths, etc. - and time and time again players must explain other players that things work differently here.
Basically: "If it compiles, it is ready to ship", to quote someone famous. Not quite, but you get the idea.
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That's where we have different development philosophies, Tim. :-)
I don't think "stable" should be behind testing too much, no matter how finished or unfinished things are - BM is never finished anyways. There are many reasons for this, the most important is that it's twice as hard to learn a game that has different sets of rules in different parts. There is a lot of confusion on both testing islands now for people moving there from stable islands. Requests for oaths, etc. - and time and time again players must explain other players that things work differently here.
Basically: "If it compiles, it is ready to ship", to quote someone famous. Not quite, but you get the idea.
I feel that if people are playing on the stable islands, they have the right to expect things to be more, well, stable.
One thing that makes the players more angry than anything else is when we replace a solid, working feature with one that's incomplete and/or buggy, and isn't finished or fixed within a few days. On testing islands, we can tell them, "Remember, you're on Testing. That's part of the deal." On stable, though, we've told them that things should more or less work.
If the new dynamic map had been introduced as "New Dynamic Map" or something, next to the existing Dynamic Map, rather than as a replacement for it, I would be all for rolling it out to stable. But it wasn't. It was introduced as a replacement, but one without many important features of the dynamic map that people relied upon, with the old dynamic map eventually moved over to where the static political map used to be.
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What about the new treaty system? That's another feature that I would very much like to see finished and not ported as is.
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New treaty system has been completely removed. It needs a full overhaul before it can even go back on testing, let alone stable.
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New treaty system has been completely removed. It needs a full overhaul before it can even go back on testing, let alone stable.
I can still draft and sign treaties in testing. Only the treaty friction has been removed.
And, well, unit behaviour doesn't follow the treaties yet, so it's not really useful at the moment except as an in-game record of texts. But it is there.
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I can still draft and sign treaties in testing. Only the treaty friction has been removed.
And, well, unit behaviour doesn't follow the treaties yet, so it's not really useful at the moment except as an in-game record of texts. But it is there.
Friction was the biggest irritant of the new system. Rulers not being able to sign their own stuff was an irritant for small realms as well. I think people were mostly satisfied with everything else... If the old system didn't require maintenance for relations, why should the new one?
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I'm really looking forward to the update to stable. I personally feel like Stable has fallen way too far behind the testing islands as far as things go. It does essentially feel like playing two different games, and while I'll play one character and enjoy the changes, I have others who simply are waiting for things to transfer over to pursue RP lines which are more easily opened up with the new changes. (such as the new estate system).
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The New Estate System coming to stable will certainly mix things up. I'll be glad for it.
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I'm moving forward as quickly as I can. Look at the bugtracker and you'll see we are hard at work fixing bugs - and not just the new ones. In the last 60 days, we have fixed 292 bugs, while only 151 new ones were reported - that means we closed 141 old bugs in addition to old ones. The amount of bugs has decreased over all time periods the bugtracker reports - including the entire past year.
I feel confident that stable won't have to wait too long.
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What are the great things about the new estate system over the old? I don't have any nobles on the testing islands, so have had no experience with it yet.
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your region doesn't go tits up without estates.
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one of the more important outstanding issue (i think) is elections/abdications/eligibility to hold combo positions have not moved over to the new system.
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your region doesn't go tits up without estates.
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one of the more important outstanding issue (i think) is elections/abdications/eligibility to hold combo positions have not moved over to the new system.
We have a King that is also the Duke, does that count as a combo position? Abdications work as well, we have had a Duke abdicate and PeL had the King abdicate.
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no... i'm talking about ruler + lord. or ruler running for lord elections.
or lord/duke combo gets the boot before autopause... but game text treats it like 1 single position.
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no... i'm talking about ruler + lord. or ruler running for lord elections.
or lord/duke combo gets the boot before autopause... but game text treats it like 1 single position.
Rulers can't be lords. If they were they would have a Duke over them. How do you reconcile that? Or is it currently the case that a Ruler can run for a Lordship on testing?
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Rulers can't be lords. If they were they would have a Duke over them. How do you reconcile that? Or is it currently the case that a Ruler can run for a Lordship on testing?
Rulers can be lords. If they are also duke of the duchy the region is in.
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We have a few issues left, for example that a king can be elected lord.
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...that's why i was saying... outstanding issues
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Rulers can be lords. If they are also duke of the duchy the region is in.
Indeed a edge case. We would also need the system to remove them as Lord if they ever lose the Duke position as well if we allowed this case.
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speaking of losing position....
how does assassination/capture ->lose position work with new hierarchy.... especially the duke position. is it possible for someone to lose the duke position? because technically... dukes can end up as duke of no regions and rendered somewhat irrelevant.. (if others conspire to make that happen)
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Tom, can you push the new features to stable one at a time? If you turn on everything at once, I am worried that we'll lose players on the stable islands due to sheer culture shock.
I say New Estates -> New Trade -> Region Pop Re-balance -> New Duchies.
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that makes no sense. new estates and new duchies are inextricably linked (and basically one and the same thing) and similarly trade/rebalance are linked.
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New estates and new duchies showed up on testing months apart, as far as I can tell. Maybe new duchies have been around and it's just not obvious until now?
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Tom, can you push the new features to stable one at a time? If you turn on everything at once, I am worried that we'll lose players on the stable islands due to sheer culture shock.
I say New Estates -> New Trade -> Region Pop Re-balance -> New Duchies.
I can't see this being possible. We could push the old revisions to stable one at a time, but then you would be lacking the bug fixes that occurred after each revision, and continue to be made. Depending on just how interlinked the new changes have become as new features have been rolled out, it might be possible to just update the appropriate files, but then we risk introducing bugs on stable by having a code base that has not been tested.
But this is a excellent example of why we need to get Stable and Testing closer together so its not just a huge leap of changes.
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Tom, can you push the new features to stable one at a time?
Only if someone pays me handsomely for the 30-60 hours of additional work I estimate something like that would cost. Sorry, there will be a culture shock. We'll be trying to make it as soft as possible, but it's another reason I want to do this soon - because we have even more changes lined up.
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Can we get an ETA on when the stable update will happen, Tom?
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It is our current #1 priority and we are working on it, but I can't give an ETA.
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I can't wait. I reckon the big bang is going to be a lot of fun!
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Will the stable islands also receive a population and food redistribution like the testing islands have?
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Believe Tom said yes to that before.
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Will the stable islands also receive a population and food redistribution like the testing islands have?
Yes
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Is there somewhere that lists all the changes we'll be seeing on stable?
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Not yet, but that's a really good idea and we should definitely do it.
Anyone who plays on both worlds want to make a start? The dev team can then add whatever you've missed, but it would help us if someone else started.
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Created a wiki page here: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Changes_to_stable
I only have adventurers on the testing islands, so the information I could add is limited. Anyone else, feel free to add stuff.
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pop/food/gold rebalance..
eh.. there isn't much to it really.. basically.. city gets less pop, others (most of them) get more. towns and would be pretty much neutral or slight deficit regarding self sufficiency in food. in any case it's not something that you can plan for... if you don't produce food, you still have to buy them. if you produce tons.. you sell, just like before.
only big thing is that food is harvested every day.
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there's also new TO ... everyone does their bit actively
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I remember a while back there was a discovery about how the price of buildings increased incorrectly (with each one built). It was found (by Tom) when decreasing the overall price of buildings to compensate for the new granary building.
I presume that the building cost fix was carted across to stable? And presumably we shall be receiving granaries and reduced costs once the changes go live to stable?
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I guess the biggest change is the new estate system.
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Will the pop rebalance affect all islands equally? FEI is already much more balanced in that regard compared to other islands . . . although it has more cities.
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In my opinion the new estate system should not be put on stable until it is finished on testing.
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In my opinion the new estate system should not be put on stable until it is finished on testing.
What needs to be done still? I think what's there, would be hugely helpful in 2 of the 3 realms I play in.
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The new estate system almost needs to be moved to stable asap in a few realms. It will completely liven up the game again to allow realms to not only work with less nobles, but also for more interactions to occur internally. This is a good change.
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The Estate system is pretty much feature complete and tested in its current incarnation. There is discussion about adding new stuff, but those are extra's and in no way needed for its migration across to stable.
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Hmmm well I do have to admit I have only limited experience since I am somewhat new to the estate system but so far it seems like they have no effect on helping production and authority, and there are a few other things I would like to wait on before getting it ported to Stable. I am only one person so I could be the only who doesnt want it to be it on stable asap due to my lack of experiance causing me to not fully understand the new estate system.
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Hmmm well I do have to admit I have only limited experience since I am somewhat new to the estate system but so far it seems like they have no effect on helping production and authority, and there are a few other things I would like to wait on before getting it ported to Stable. I am only one person so I could be the only who doesnt want it to be it on stable asap due to my lack of experiance causing me to not fully understand the new estate system.
Its not supposed to have an effect of production and authority. That was a feature of the old system, since you no longer suffer a penalty for "lack of estate coverage" you don't need estates to work on these things.
Estates are now a way to unlock the gold potential of your region.
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So with estate size restrictions and assuming a duke wants no wild lands in his city, the largest amount of gold he can receive from taxes is 50%?
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Is 30% the maximum for cities?
For strongholds, I can create estates with 40% share with 84% efficiency. I have 60% wildlands so I will receive 63.6% of the total income every week by myself.
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Your estates and wild lands must add up to 100%. So either you have manned estates, vacant estates or wild lands. Both vacant estates and wild lands generate income at about 50% efficiency.
By having more vassals, the lord actually gets less gold himself, but the total income generated by the region is greater, thereby benefiting the realm more.
Cities can only have estates as large as 30%. I don't know about other region types.
As an example, suppose that a city generates a weekly income of 1000 gold.
With just a duke, he can have a 30% estates at about 80% efficiency, plus 70% wild land at 50% efficiency. His weekly income is (0.3 * 0.8 + 0.7 * 0.5) * 1000 = 590 gold.
If he takes in a knight, by establishing a vacant estate of size 30% and letting the knight move in, his new weekly income is (0.3 * 0.8 + 0.4 * 0.5) * 1000 = 440 gold. His vassal's weekly income is (0.3 * 0.8 ) * 1000 = 240 gold.
And the Duke can choose to tax his vassal knight at 0 to 50%.
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50% is max for townsland, 72% efficiency. 83% efficiency @ 40%.
Your regions' gold income will always be higher with occupied estates, rather than unoccupied. Your own (lord) income, on the other hand, could decrease, although you can monkey with the tax rates and lords share to give yourself whatever you want.
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Cities can only have estates as large as 30%. I don't know about other region types.
Small cities can have estates of 40% - eg a city with max population of 13.7k. The city currently has a very low population, between 10 and 20% of the max, so I don't know if that makes a difference, but we shall see whether it changes.
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Any update on when the push to stable will happen? :(
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I am close to making an announcement. We are currently waiting for the results of the latest code updates, but it will be fairly soon. We have all the major changes absolutely required in place. But there are other changes that are essential that we've been holding back until after the big one. For a couple weeks after the update, stable will be receiving updates almost as quickly as testing does, before the two seperate again.
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And when they separate, I assume it will only by a few weeks to a month at most? :)
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I am close to making an announcement. We are currently waiting for the results of the latest code updates, but it will be fairly soon. We have all the major changes absolutely required in place. But there are other changes that are essential that we've been holding back until after the big one. For a couple weeks after the update, stable will be receiving updates almost as quickly as testing does, before the two seperate again.
Will you be artificially boosting food output on stable for a short period to bridge the changeover from old to new food systems, or do you think that's unnecessary since the changes have been fine-tuned on testing?
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I've not decided. My current idea is to do the update shortly after harvest, so the stores are full.
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Will the sage and wizard system be updated with this on to stable?
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Will the sage and wizard system be updated with this on to stable?
Yes. Thanks for reminding me, must populate the Travellers table.
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Cool, I can't wait to have my advy stalk a sage or wizard all around the continent. Also is it possible to have 2 sages in one region?
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Cool, I can't wait to have my advy stalk a sage or wizard all around the continent. Also is it possible to have 2 sages in one region?
Sure, why not?
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Wasn't sure if there was code for some reason so two couldn't be in the same region. How much longer do you think for getting the update ready for stable?
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Also is it possible to have 2 sages in one region?
I've seen it on Dwilight, so yes.
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Wasn't sure if there was code for some reason so two couldn't be in the same region. How much longer do you think for getting the update ready for stable?
Depends... we are doing initial tests of the update on the development servers, things now depend on how smoothly those go.
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I'm sure this has been asked but I can't remember the answer. What happens to existing knights when the new system comes in? Are they all booted out? Are they all automatically given estates with x% of their region? And what happens to estates that are no longer valid under the new system? Specifically, a ruler with an estate?
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The way it was done before, the estates were directly converted. If you had a 20% oath, you got a 20% estate.
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And it seems there is code to check if there is any 'bad' hierarchy, which will automatically take care of things like Rulers as Lords/Knights:
Estate Vacated (6 days, 8 hours ago)
message to the lord and knights of Ardmore
Scribes find out that due to confusion about the political (or feudal) hierarchy, Sir Marche Telrunya, High Chancellor of Riombara, Marshal of the Army of Riombara is forced to relinquish his estate. He, as High Chancellor, cannot hold allegiance to a Viscount. These 50 % of the region are now without a knight. He also loses his job as steward, as he is no longer a knight of the region.
Any Ruler Lords will need to get things sorted out and try make their Region a Duchy if possible if they want to remain Lord, I assume :)
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You are completely correct.
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well.. obviously.. they wouldn't know they'll be elected beforehand... and thus unless you make every single lord candidate a duke...
best wait till they work out the change mooted elsewhere..
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But with the update to Stable, current Rulers might be Lords that will need to make their own region a Duchy before the new code sets in and kicks them out.
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That may not always be possible. Unless they are already a Duke than they will not be able to make a townsland a Ducal seat until after the update. Right now the Ducal seats are limited to cities and you must be lord of a city to be duke.
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Well, basically, they can probably do it the day the code goes live. And else, then the Ruler loses his region. Opens up a nice Lordship for someone else :)
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It's not hard to delay the cleanup by a few days.
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+1 on getting these great changes on stable for the purely selfish reason that it'll make our lives a lot more fun and less aggravating!
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Indeed. My stable characters are all playing RegionMaintenance master. Well, one failed, while the other two have done a good job of turning their regions around.
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What's the progress looking like on this?
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We have done a couple quite successful tests.
The main stop right now is that I will be away the entire weekend next weekend, and I don't want to make such a huge update when I'm without Internet access for three days. So the inofficial timeline says the week of the 7th. An announcement will probably follow shortly.
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We have done a couple quite successful tests.
The main stop right now is that I will be away the entire weekend next weekend, and I don't want to make such a huge update when I'm without Internet access for three days. So the inofficial timeline says the week of the 7th. An announcement will probably follow shortly.
Sweet!
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Any word on this? Is the push to Stable happening today? This weekend? Delayed to next week?
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Latest from Tom was some noises about this weekend, but he seems to be pretty busy at the moment.
More on this story as it develops.
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It will happen as soon as I can see that I have several hours of time free ahead of me, because I can't interrupt it in the middle because I need to leave for something.
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It will happen as soon as I can see that I have several hours of time free ahead of me, because I can't interrupt it in the middle because I need to leave for something.
Hurray, I am looking forward to the changes. It will be exciting.
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Probably tomorrow, afternoon or evening.
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This whole Stable Update thing is another April Fool's Joke, isn't it? :(
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This whole Stable Update thing is another April Fool's Joke, isn't it? :(
Tom is a busy man. Be patient...
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Tom is a busy man. Be patient...
ya. He still has time left from what he said....
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Finally Colonies island is updated stable. But there is a bug which I just reported :'(
http://bugs.battlemaster.org/view.php?id=6897 (http://bugs.battlemaster.org/view.php?id=6897)
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This thread should be closed, we have the other thread for bug reports.
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This thread should be closed, we have the other thread for bug reports.
but this thread can be used to answer questions about the new system for those that are not on testing.
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but this thread can be used to answer questions about the new system for those that are not on testing.
That's why the other thread is called "Update Breakages and Questions (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,2460.0.html)".
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That's why the other thread is called "Update Breakages and Questions (http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,2460.0.html)".
Then he is correct and this thread needs to be closed