BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: feyeleanor on October 28, 2015, 10:29:22 AM
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It would have been nice to get some advance warning of the changes prior to login this morning.
You also might like to consider the impact of the changes on the Colonies where a number of players (myself included) have two nobles.
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Yeah, what is the actual benefit of lowering the character limit in a continent from 2 to 1?
Aren't we having issues with players and noble density? Won't this just hurt the realms instead of helping it?
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It seems to me that this will just further reduce the number of nobles in each realm and make it even harder to do anything on any of the continents.
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This change won't have anything to do with player density, but it will affect character density. The point from what I understand is to get rid of characters that are just blank slate troop leaders and placeholders.
I personally don't think two nobles per continent adds anything to the game but allow realms which shouldn't be able to function to function.
This will likely further reveal where problems exist that were simply covered up beforehand. It will also encourage people to use their noble slots to actually contribute new characters to realms on different continents. Providing an overall boost to interaction.
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Is this on every island?
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According to the message, yes it is.
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Yes.
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there have been some sh*tty changes in the past but this change will all but drive me from the game. I have no desire to have characters on some islands and now I'm forced to chose whether to pause characters for an artificial reason in game or ship them to a new island where I have no desire to play them. what a crock.
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All limits are artificial limits. Like two characters per island. Or five active characters total. Or four nobles for non-donators.
It's not artificial limits you're complaining about, but a change that will affect the way you play the game. I'm sorry that the limits will affect you in a negative way. (Fwiw: they hit me, too. I have to pause one of my characters right now before I can even play again.)
However, no one is forcing you to play on any particular island. The island you play on is your choice. The limit of one character per island is one that the dev team, and many experienced players, feel is an overall positive change. We hope that if you give it a chance, you will feel the same way.
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It is true the complaint is about lowering the artificial limit from 2 to 1. It is true that the complaint is that this seemed to happen out of left field without any communication with the players.
It is true that no one is "forcing" any of us to play on any islands. Then again, if we follow that logic, one can also point out no one "forces" us to play in BM either. We all choose to play here and choose the islands we are on for a reason. There are sometimes reasons why some players do not play on a particular island including the fact that they have tried it and didn't like that continent. Has this been considered?
I'm not yet sure what "positive" this will give. Perhaps you can point out what they are so that we can see them better?
I'm having a hard time seeing how this will help the game. I could see if we were having an issue with new players not being able to get positions because of the overcrowding, but honestly, it's the exact opposite. We are trying to fill up the basic slots to be able to keep enjoying BM. This change seems to be done to remove our ability to help keep islands afloat within the specifications that the BM administrative team gave us originally. Will we have the dev team or others fill those spots? I believe the answer is no. So, when will you be announcing the sinking of islands or more ice coming? That's the only thing I can see happening when the character count drops and it's not being replaced, right?
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Question.
Do advys count towards the character limit? They didn't on Dwilight so I'm not sure.
If they do:
1) Why?
2) Will we be allowed to move them?
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One character per island is a concept which Dwilight had been testing for a long time. The results of that test have proven wildly positive. Interactions are better. Every single character can be expected to respond to people and have its own view on things. There are no placeholder characters. There is no "filling out" of realms. The characters you have are your realm. This allows you to know you're interacting directly with a character a player cares about each time.
Finally, the main benefit is that it removes blank slate characters. It seems you don't see this as a problem. Which is fine. My question would be: Do you dedicate he same amount of time and planning for both of your characters when they share a continent or do you have a primary and a support character? If you are like most people you have a primary and support character. I have done it myself. However, the evidence has shown that in the vast majority of cases (not all) this dynamic hurts the game instead of helps it.
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First of all, apologies for the confusion. It wasn't intended for continent-restrictions to be live *yet*. There was a bug (or more accurately, I overlooked something), that resulted in the GM messages being distributed for anyone with 2 characters on an island (whether they were noble or advy). Tim has rolled back those changes for now.
When they *are* live, it will be one actively-played noble and one active-played advy per island. Emigration restrictions/penalties at that time may be temporarily softened.
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When I played on Dwilight as a noble, I often got no responses to mails. I now have just an adventurer and I still often get no responses to mails. From my perspective this hasn't changed. Perhaps since the character is an adventurer, that may be why as well. So, if it's helped on the noble side, then that's a great improvement. Dwilight was miserable in my experience. It was stale and didn't welcome any changes to it.
Do you dedicate he same amount of time and planning for both of your characters when they share a continent or do you have a primary and a support character?
My two characters on AT are Susan (CE) and Cymore (Strombran). They each have their own goals and objectives. Susan is a diplomat and Cymore is a Hero/Warrior. I dedicate a bit of time and planning for each of them to achieve their objectives. Neither are just a support character. Their objectives have clashed at times, but mostly they do not even interact any more.
I can appreciate the fact that some may not be able to handle 2 characters on the same island. It takes a bit of dedication and perhaps should be a reward for more active players? I dedicate a good amount of time to BM partly because I like the style we have here and some of the fun I've had here. I can remember a time when there was enough people here that 2 characters on an island wouldn't even be something that bothered people. Heck, I didn't even know about a number of them until recently.
Vita, that was another concern of mine regarding the penalties of immigrating. When will this be live? We will have to start figuring out what to do next. I don't like the change right now, but just because I don't like something doesn't mean I couldn't be won over.
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A series of larger changes to BM, including the continental restrictions, should be going live throughout November.
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With the changes going through in November, will it force us to decide immediately or will we have a window in which to remove a character, move it, etc?
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There will be a warning, and a period during which to move the characters.
It is likely (but not yet decided) that there will be a relaxing of the emigration penalties during that time.
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First of all, apologies for the confusion. It wasn't intended for continent-restrictions to be live *yet*. There was a bug (or more accurately, I overlooked something), that resulted in the GM messages being distributed for anyone with 2 characters on an island (whether they were noble or advy). Tim has rolled back those changes for now.
When they *are* live, it will be one actively-played noble and one active-played advy per island. Emigration restrictions/penalties at that time may be temporarily softened.
I just logged in and still got the GM message - I'm assuming that's just how the GM system works and it's not possible to revoke the message despite rolling back the effective change?
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I saw the message and immediately knew it was a bug since I read the update message which clearly says it wasn't going to happen until next month and BM is well known for bugs after it gets updated. I got the message on Dwilight since I have an advy and Noble there (and advy I was hoping to make into a noble, trying to get that done now so I can emigrate her). I didn't have to do anything with my characters though.
As for the change in limits itself, it's probably for the best. Though it definitely sucks for people who already have two characters that they actually put effort into both of them for RP. They should be given enough time to wrap up business for one character if they are going to emigrate them and come up with a reason why they are leaving.
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Will we be sinking islands as a direct result of character counts being lowered by this policy or will more ice come? Right now, AT was barely able to be running before this rule. After this, we have too many regions with too few lords. I believe this also applies to other islands as well including at least Beluaterra.
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There will be no new ice involved in the process.
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Thank God, that ice was the worst idea ever. Until this one, that is.
So, the post says the changes have been rolled back, yet I'm still unable to log in to any of my five active nobles (not counting the war islands character) without pausing someone. I get no chance to wind down my existing characters before pausing? Since absolutely NO notice was given, which is absurd.
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Thank God, that ice was the worst idea ever. Until this one, that is.
So, the post says the changes have been rolled back, yet I'm still unable to log in to any of my five active nobles (not counting the war islands character) without pausing someone. I get no chance to wind down my existing characters before pausing? Since absolutely NO notice was given, which is absurd.
Yes, as has been said, this was unintentional. The character-per-continent limit change was a bug. When it does happen, there will be plenty of warning.
For now, please confirm for me that you actually can't play, and it's not just a nasty-looking message that sits there and glares at you as you go on your merry way ignoring it. If it's actually preventing you from playing, then there's more fixing work we need to do.
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I just submitted a bug report on it. I cannot play. The only option given me is to pause or delete someone.
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I just submitted a bug report on it. I cannot play. The only option given me is to pause or delete someone.
OK, thanks. For the time being, I have temporarily disabled the character limit checks. Please let me know if this fixes your immediate issue.
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Yes, that solved my issue. Thank you, I now get to begin working on slimming down, apparently.
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Oh great, disable it right after I pause my ruler character on FEI... :p
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Dante Silverfire is absolutely right about the single character thing. Multiple characters per island results in many, many problems. Disposable characters, drones, zombies, etc. People will have their "main" take the positions, and then use their "alt" to do the boring scout tasks that no one in their right mind would want to do. Positions are given to the Duke's second character, because you know you can trust him. Realms A and B never go to war or have disagreements because all the key players in both realms are the same, just with different titles. The Marshal of the army of Realm A moves to attack because "my cousin in Realm B told me the attack arrives at sunset". Second characters are often ignored, and used as nothing more than faceless/mindless troop leaders who's only purpose is to provide more muscle for the army.
Yes, some people may play their characters as separate entities. And some may even play them as possibly working against each other. But I don't think anyone really feels that applies to the majority of dual-character families, especially when the characters play in the same realm.
Remember that islands change. The play experience on most islands changes dramatically over time. Give a different island an honest chance. Just because you hated Dwilight in 2009, the year after it opened, doesn't mean that you will hate it today, six years later. None of the realms from back then even exist anymore. Similarly, EC has undergone great changes in the past two or three years, as has BT. Well, OK, Atamara hasn't changed one damn bit until today, but there's always an exception. ;)
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The prime example of two character on the same continent problem mainly comes from CE federation. For years, they haven't gone to war with each other. AT became the very definition of stagnation and boredom. EC was like that for awhile but somehow overcame that. Then again EC never became an issue as AT.
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The prime example of two character on the same continent problem mainly comes from CE federation. For years, they haven't gone to war with each other. AT became the very definition of stagnation and boredom. EC was like that for awhile but somehow overcame that. Then again EC never became an issue as AT.
I can attest to that, and I wasn't even in the federation. (For most of my time there.) We were simply an ally of CE. I was the Ruler of a realm, but I also had a second character as a troop leader, and eventually region lord then Duke. The Duke, I quickly stepped down though, because that was just too much consolidated power.
The problem is that no matter the intention, usually two characters are played together so that their realm is stronger. That's not a good situation.
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Also having only one character limits the amount of information you get as a player because you will only have one character. Unless you work on establishing some form of network to gather information, you won't find out much unlike now.
You can tell what is going on on the other side of the continent by having a character there...
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There are spies all over the place. The greatest are not even in families.
AT has had several wars and will again. There is a plan to disrupt the federations and alliances. In a matter of fact, there remains only one left. It's my hope that ce will be changed.
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There has been a drive of late to revitalize Atamara. I have been driving towards it for a while, and now am very happy to be pushing it. :)
As for me, I have two characters in Tara. One is the ruler. The other is...not. He recently joined an allied realm to help them out, but is coming back home now due to...well...the coming excitement...:) In general the second character has been a second character. He actually blossomed a lot when he joined the other realm. But when he's part of Tara I don't do a lot of role playing with him. I've played the game the way the game is played and used him mostly as a way of helping make Tara stronger. If it is the choice of the devs to disallow this, I understand. I don't think it is the right decision, especially when we are already running low on nobles. Further reducing the noble count will just break the game down quicker. But if that is what they want then that is what they want. *shrugs*
I also have two characters on Beluaterra. My situation there is completely and totally different though. My one character is the High Priestess of the dominant religion of the continent. AKA EVERY region has believers, and MOST regions have a majority of believers in that religion. This is after the Daimons missed ONE temple during the Third (I think) invasion. From that, the religion has grown to...well...everywhere. Nobles from most of the nations are in the religion. And she is...well...she has a very defined character. She is a peacenik. She is a tree hugger. She is a priest. She is an ambassador. And until an assassin at war with her realm stabbed her, she was a banker, getting food to the people. She is a member of a realm because you really can't do much as a rogue. But her loyalties are...not to her realm. Her stated and acted on goal is to unite humanity in preparation for another Daimon assault. Which means in her mind being loyal to all humans not just to the realm she happens to live in.
My other character on that continent is a warrior. Pure and simple. The best use of trees is making bows and arrows. Or shields if you do the infantry thing. Siege engines are good too. Poles for banners. Kindling for use against enemy towns. You know. Fighting for his nation and happily slinging insults and such at the enemy.
The point is that I have two entirely different games going on in Beluaterra. One is Priestly. And for those who have never played priests, they play much more like adventurers. No troops to fight with. No scouts. No nothing that would let them see what is going on. You spend most of your time blind to what is going on around you as you spend most of your time preaching and talking to commoners. For a long time I only had the priest in Beluaterra and as a player I didn't know much about what was going on with the wars and such. Most priests in the game that I know of are played by people who also have a normal noble on the same continent. Once I brought my second character in to play as a warrior, I know my enjoyment of the game went up a lot.
If people are forced to choose between having a priest and a normal noble, I think I know what most people are going to choose. And after this game has spent so many years pushing the religion angle of the game, that is going to be very sad. Because most people are not going to pick the priest. And the religions are going to drop like flies when they run out of priests.
As I said above, I am against lowering the 2 character limit to a 1 character limit. I think it will only hurt the game. I could see a one character per realm limit. Or a one character of each type per realm limit. But a hard 1 character limit is just going to cause a general collapse of the game in my opinion.
And I can say without reservation that it will greatly affect my ability to play the game at all due to the choices I'm going to have make if I wish to continue playing at all.
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It might not be a bad idea to separate priest class completely and treat it like advy.
So 0 secular influence. The moment your religion dies, your priest dies too. Unless you convert of course but at a heavy cost. But this sounds like a lot of work.
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It might not be a bad idea to separate priest class completely and treat it like advy.
So 0 secular influence. The moment your religion dies, your priest dies too. Unless you convert of course but at a heavy cost. But this sounds like a lot of work.
It is almost possible to kill a religion. Generally, the only way to do it is when all priests quit.
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Now I understand that my personal opinions are not relevant in the grand scheme of things, but this change is going to cause my plans to try and wake up the Far East to falter before they are even put into effect as I need both my ladies to make it happen. Which is a shame tbh, the Far East needs a wake up call badly and reducing the amount of nobles on it is likely going to only amplify the effects of the state of torpor it's already in.
Thus, I feel the noble reduction may be a deathstroke for the Far East and quite possibly the game entirely. Which would be a shame because at the very least I'm still having fun with both my ladies in the Far East; due to the nature of the story I'm telling with them I have little interest in having one of them move to another island and that would likely just be an icebox sentence for the younger character as the other one is a ruler in the Far East. :/
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One option might be to convert one of them to an NPC again - but I can appreciate why that would be massively disappointing.
Tbh though, I don't think FEI is going to make it through the reforms to the game anyway - closing continents is pretty inevitable and since Tom refuses to allow EC to close it's unlikely that FEI will survive. On the other hand, that does at least mean that a mass exodus of nobles from FEI to EC could allow some interesting conflict as FEI realms/religions try to re-establish themselves in a new continent.
For now though it's best to try to keep playing as normal so as to make sure that a) things stay as fun as possible in the meantime and b) you're character(s) actually have to react if the island is closed rather than already being prepared and waiting for it.
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NPCs can't make a religion sadly. (or revive one) the second character was the first character's page from the age of 6 in RP though. So getting rid of her would be horrible. x.x; And maybe the exodus from the Far East is a thing but if they get dumped in the Far East... I dunno how that'd work out; I kinda hope we can keep the Far East alive tbh. It's pretty fun over here, you should all join us! We got tea and cookies! ;)
On a more serious note; I like the atmosphere and background lore of the Far East alot so it'd be fairly undesireable for that to be lost. :/
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This sucks. It's nothing but the recurrent "bad apple spoils the basket" argument.
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Yes. Chaos. I like it.
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This sucks. It's nothing but the recurrent "bad apple spoils the basket" argument.
???
You mind explaining that with some context?
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this is a mistake.
while yes there are certain issues caused by multiple nobles per continent the far worse issue is the inability to siege militia garrisoned cities, which having multiple nobles per continent ameliorates to an extent.
while no one likes zombie characters it is a small price to pay when player density is so low.
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This is a poorly conceived idea. The mass exodus of nobles will cause some realms to collapse entirely, and I'm fairly sure there will be no mass influx of nobles to compensate. I know I will not be among any such influx, as I have no desire to play on the other continents for various reasons. However, I do like playing the number of characters I do at the moment. Unfortunately for me, I will be finding the game far less enjoyable due to this exercise of ignoring player feedback. If you want to stop players from having two characters in a realm to artificially support themselves, create a one character per realm rule rather than this overbearing and unnecessary restriction.
For adventurers, if you have a noble on the continent as well, what's the point of playing an adventurer and getting them to noble status? Just so they can emigrate from the continent they just supported for their entire career? And for a roleplaying game, where is the concern for the arbitrary violation of many player's long RP lines for the sake of this no-improvement change?
We come down to the fact that there is no background set of guidelines governing the direction of the game. What is the priority? Are the devs here to make the game fun... support the roleplaying element rather than using it merely as a tagline... keep the game running long-term... create a player first atmosphere... inspire a social community of tolerance and equality... treat their players with dignity and respect... I don't know honestly, because this decision stands out as being in stark contrast to everything I just listed. 13 years of playing this game mostly uninterrupted, and this is the first decision I've seen that's made we want to make it my last.
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The dev team will piss off people either way. Might as well put a stricter rule then get blamed than put another half assed measure only to have 0 impact and get blamed.
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I think there is a misconception about this change. Some people are indicating that realms might collapse if two nobles are not Llowed in the same realm or continent. They then say this is a bad thing. In my opinion, it would be a great thing if realms collapsed after losing the ability to have two nobles from the same player. All that means is it reveals a severe weakness and problem with that realm. If a realm can't exist with enough interesting interaction with only one noble per player it deserves to fail.
Simple Darwinism I'm the game. This failing of bad realms will allow for the rise of more good realms.
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I agree. If your realm is collapsing because you can't have fillers, then too bad. Your realm should have collapsed long ago.
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The mass exodus of nobles will cause some realms to collapse entirely, and I'm fairly sure there will be no mass influx of nobles to compensate.
See, that's part of the problem: Otherwise nonviable realms propped up by dual characters. If people move out, and spread out to other islands, then more realms will be viable, and viable because they actually have more than, say, 4 players in them.
I know I will not be among any such influx, as I have no desire to play on the other continents for various reasons.
What reasons? If you don't tell us, we can't know, and make any possible changes, if needed.
Also, if you haven't played on an island in the past two years, then realize that you effectively haven't played on that island at all. (Except for AT...)
I will be finding the game far less enjoyable due to this exercise of ignoring player feedback.
Not acting on feedback does not mean it's being ignored. We are here and listening. We're just, at this point, going to disagree with you.
If you want to stop players from having two characters in a realm to artificially support themselves, create a one character per realm rule rather than this overbearing and unnecessary restriction.
That only solves one, and minor, problem of multiple characters. Two characters with significant power in different realms are undoubtedly more powerful than in separate realms. If anything, an I'm not saying this is what we would do, I would force both characters to be in the *same* realm. This addresses the problems of unduly large influence, unbreakable alliance, unrealistic/unfairly reliable communication, etc.
And for a roleplaying game, where is the concern for the arbitrary violation of many player's long RP lines for the sake of this no-improvement change?
You're saying that you're not willing to slightly adjust your RP for the sake of a better, healthier game? That maintaining your two-character-on-an-island RP is more important than helping make the game better, and more active/dynamic, for everyone?
The point of this change is to help make the game better. More active. More vibrant. More dynamic. For everyone. If the players are willing to play along and give it a try, then I have no doubt that we can make this work.
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I'm committing a cardinal sin of replying on such a post without first reading all the replies, but...
I find myself in a very peculiar position. I've got a whole lot of talk around me about how this is a terrible, awful move and it will kill so much of Battlemaster... but yet I've been playing like this for years. I chalk it up a bit to different strokes, but my point here is really: Give it a shot. You can still make things happen with just one character. It may feel like more work, but I guarantee you'll also feel more accomplished. Especially when someone else gives you that metaphorical "high five" letter. I'm not saying that doesn't happen with two characters, but it does feel less genuine.
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I personally am looking forward to these changes and just recently came back after a couple month pause.
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*Raise my hand up for being guilty myself*
Look like I need migrate my characters then. Hmmmm, just when I got my secondary character win the sword tournament recently :o
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I have four characters in two realms on two continents.
My first character fought when his realm had been reduced to a single city and helped reverse the long slide into oblivion. He has been a ruler on both Beluaterra and Atamara. And a general and a duke as well.
My second character has been a proud warrior. She has killed a king in battle. And now she is the high priestess of the largest religion on her continent.
My third character has been a ruler, a general, a banker, and a judge. He has been a priest in the largest religion on Dwilight. He has seen realms die, he has seen them rebuild, and he has seen war. Now he has returned to his homeland where he fights.
My fourth character is downright boring next to them. But he is a banker now and he rather enjoys going out and breaking stuff a lot. It is his great hope to soon be striking down an enemy capital. And he loves commanding rank upon rank of archers. Massed arrow fire can bring down anything.
I have played on the Colonies, Dwilight, the war islands, Atamara, and Beluaterra. In the end, I preferred the experience of playing on Atamara and Beluaterra and have left the other continents as I found them...less enjoyable. I do not feel guilty about this choice. There is nothing for me to feel guilty about. I am playing this game in the way I enjoy it, and I am seeking to make the game more enjoyable for others by tearing down the old alliances.
The League of the Eagle on Atamara for instance has won. In a game designed to have no winners we have fought for years and years through careful planning and politics to defeat all comers and now rule the continent. We recently had a discussion about that and decided it was time to mix things up. To scramble the continent up a lot. We've broken up two federations with only one more to go. And the wars and rumors of wars have already commenced. And something that has been building for months has finally boiled over into open conflict. I'm rather looking forward to seeing how it turns out myself as it promises to be one almighty shakeup. All aimed with the purpose of making things more exciting for every player on the continent.
Some people here seem to act as if having two characters is a sin or something. I take the opportunity to play two different game styles and rather enjoy it. It is fun. This is a game after all. Fun is the whole idea, yes?
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The problem is that the majority of 2 chars on a continent cause problems. If they are in different realms, they both tend to become too powerfull and you get problems of them working together. Enough examples within the league of eagles, but also elsewhere. The problem with 2 chars in one realm is that usually one is 'braindead'.
WHen I started again with BM, I tried to go on different continents in stead because of that reason. On Atamara I do have two chars, but separated them on purpose with one disliking the other. Plus Talerium and Caergoth are lightyears away from each other. There will be cases of players 'doing it right' with 2 chars, but many don't which created a problem. Even though it'll be annoying for me also to move a char, I do understand why this decision was made.
And as everyone said, all continents have changed a lot in the recent periods so why not give it a go? Even Atamara is now changing as you and I both know.
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I'm sorry but this whole idea that the League of the Eagle having won a continent in a game not intended for a continent to ever be won is the best example of the problem we have. It would not have been possible for the League of the Eagle to have "Won" without two characters per player within the league for most players. This is one of their core advantages that they have had forever. The number of players with multiple characters within the league is huge compared to any other example. (Without concrete data on the subject. Although, I think Tim looked at this years ago.)
The League is also the pinnacle example of having created a toxic game atmosphere on an island. You say the league was seeking to win for many years and careful planning got you there but that's not a good thing. That systematic approach of killing off all enemies without any internal conflict has caused many people to leave Atamara and the game. And ALL of that is built upon double characters. One in CE, one in Tara. Two in CE, Two in Tara. One in CE, one in Talerium. And all sorts of combos. I know it was almost like an unofficial policy years ago when I played in CE. It made the armies ridiculously powerful.
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It wasn't dual characters that won Atamara. If it was that powerful someone else would have done it.
Superior strategy turned the tide.
I was there, many many moons ago when Tara was down to a single city and two other regions. I and a bunch of friends who play BattleTech were looking to play an internet computer game together and one of us suggested we come play BattleMaster. He told us about a nation on the verge of collapse that we could help save and we decided to try it out.
A whole bunch of us joined Tara at once and we did turn the tide. That and the fact that Cagil fought with us in almost every battle. Regstav was one of those first two characters. Yao Ling was the other. Yao Ling is now High Priestess of the largest religion on Beluaterra. And after going to Beluaterra and being deported by Daimons, Regstav came back to Tara...and was just recently elected to the Tyrancy of Tara.
Saying that dual characters won Atamara is just wrong. If it was that easy, anyone would have done it. What won Atamara is Cagil and Tara. After that fight for survival I took part in, Tara has been utterly and completely loyal to Cagil. Tara owed its life to Cagil, and every character I've ever had that played in Tara has always reminded every new generation of Taran of that debt. We owe them our life. They stood with us and so we stand with them. Period. End of Line.
That made a core of two realms that would never fight each other right in the heart of Atamara. And then Cagilan diplomacy brought in a series of other nations to support that core alliance in war after war until we slowly just marched across the entire continent. One diplomatic alliance after another, each predicated on the fact that everybody knew that Tara would never abandon Cagil, and that the two of us would fight like demons to protect the other.
That is what won Atamara. An alliance between nations based on a literal life debt that nothing would shake. And an amazing series of diplomatic successes by Cagil. I have watched them for years, and I've been amazed by what they have managed to pull off time and again over the years.
Diplomacy and loyalty were what did it.
Dual characters didn't do that. *snort* Like I said, if dual characters could do something like that, everybody would be doing it on every continent. And they aren't.
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Dual characters didn't do that. *snort* Like I said, if dual characters could do something like that, everybody would be doing it on every continent. And they aren't.
Except that that's an overly simplistic view that overlooks a lot of factors.
For instance, what if people on other continents are less interested in having a giant alliance "win" the whole continent?
Or what if people on other continents are less likely to want to have multiple characters in one realm or alliance?
There are a lot of elements of Atamara's atmosphere that attract particular kinds of people and lend themselves to particular kinds of strategies. It's possible that loading up on doublets wouldn't be as powerful on other continents due to the different dynamics. I don't know—but then, I don't believe anyone's actually claiming that loading up on doublets is the one and only reason that the CE bloc has conquered Atamara.
But if you don't think that it's a significant contributor to the bloc's success, then you're in denial.
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People have done it on other continents. And it took Tom's personal intervention on EC to break it up.
You cannot deny that multiple characters was a significant contributing factor. (Well you can deny it, but you'd be wrong.) Not the only factor, of course. There's no denying that your war machine was very good. But quite a lot of what you're describing is rooted in the advantages provided by that. No one is claiming deliberate abuse.
You worked within the limits and rules of the game, and that's fine. It's just that note the rules are changing.
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Medron Pryde, I'm one of those people from the battletech site that you're from, and I agree with Indirik on this. Dual characters have played a huge role in making Atamara toxic. Oh, and by the way, winning a game that doesn't have a winner isn't winning, it's forcing everyone else out of the game.
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If these adventurers we've been allowed become nobles, will we be forced to remove one of our then two nobles from the continent before playing? I don't enjoy playing advies to begin with, but if I'm forced to remove a character after going through months of playing a char I don't enjoy...ugh. I'll give the new change a try, but that's like the straw that breaks the camel's back for me.
The AT alliance block has been a poison for years, and I avoided the continent because of it for a long time, periodically recreating a character there to see if anything had (or could've) been changed. I find it ironic that the same month the League has OOC discussions about major changes to break up the block and revive the continent, it's essentially forced on us with no discussion or forewarning whatsoever...it would've been more fun in my opinion if some of the brainstorming that took place there had been implemented. I wish the League had evolved to this level of understanding sooner.
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There's a feature request on the bugtracker now to remind me to enable emigration at the same time as ennoblement.
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Oh, it does absolutely help a war machine to have two characters. That's common sense.
But that's not what turned the tide on Atamara. It MAY have helped during the initial fighting when I showed up. But I mostly remember that we were stretching the ability of Foda to support the army. Even though we had lots of nobles, we couldn't effectively recruit up to what we could lead because Foda didn't make enough money. So we were limited by the economy on how much we could field. What I remember making the difference in that war was Cagil. They showed up at every big battle and turned the tide in our favor.
And after that, Tara and Cagil have been absolutely linked at the hip and have not fought each other. Ever. And every time someone threatened either of us, we helped each other take them out. And most of the time Cagil talked someone else into fighting on our side using diplomatic footwork that was amazing to watch. Or got someone else to agree to stand out of the fight. Or started another war up to get their attention. It's always been something.
You can try to hang the blame on dual characters all you want, but that's not what's made the difference in Atamara.
It's Cagilan diplomacy that did it. In every single war that has happened in the entire time I've played the game, the Cagilans have bought, cajoled, or negotiated just enough nations over to our side that we've won. Every single time. And each time we take over a city or two. And when you add that up in years, you get the situation we are in now, where that boughten and cajoled alliance of nations on top of the Taran/Cagilan alliance is just plain dominant over everything else.
Which did bring stagnation to Atamara. Which is why we decided to break things up before this "fix" was suggested. We came up with the conclusion that only two things could break the dominance we'd forged. Tom or the Devs coming in and breaking things up. Or we players agreeing to break things up. Because we'd pushed things to the point that no alliance of nations outside our alliance could ever again threaten us. We'd won. And that's no fun for people in other nations. So we agreed to break things up, and then came up with a real good IC reason, built on a very long IC history, to do it.
We've got the same minds that have spent the better part of a decade turning the Taran/Cagilan brotherhood into the dominant powerbloc of an entire continent now devoted to tearing it back down.
Atamara is in for some exciting times. And I can't wait to see what the other players do with that.
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Medron,
There are many reasons that the League won Atamara. Good diplomacy, Strong military leadership (Enri Kinsey is one of the top 5 generals of all BM history in my opinion), and strong loyalty. But, a huge component of that is multiple characters per player. Even with a good military and good diplomacy, the CE bloc would have lost the war to end all Atamaran wars when the entire island teamed up against them, if it weren't for double characters.
Also, it is completely disingenuous to act like the League has only just won Atamara. He League won Atamara the day Falasan fell. Everything since then has been inevitable assuming the CE bloc continued to push the toxic agenda of forcing everyone else out. You've won once you control more than 50-60% of the island. After that, it should have been changed. Not wait another 5 years to make sure everyone leaves Atamara.
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I am sorry but CE bloc had years to break up and revive the continent. It is just too late now. Why didn't you guys try to break the alliance up sooner?
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First I was sad, somethings would change and I did not like it. Now I can see a chance to a renewal from and to everyone.
We can use this to have more fun instead of complaining here. Just need a little bit of creativity.
I suggest to make plans and to start changing the rps. We don't have to stay tied to our chars story. In fact, this is the biggest difference from rp and RL.
Count on me devs. I will do whatever I can to have fun, and to bring people to have fun with me.
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I think this change is for the best. I look forward to seeing which realms become ghost towns.
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You want a reason nothing has changed over the last few years?
One reason? I wasn't around.
Now I'm not taking credit. Lots of people have been pushing to do this for a while now.
But I've been...rather inactive for a while. I had dropped into a very low level of activity in BattleMaster.
When the previous Tyrant left, I decided to go for the Tyrancy. And ever since I've been Tyrant I've been...pushing Tara to go outside the League. Straining relations...and now thanks to the actions of Strombran those relations have snapped.
I don't know if I would have done anything like this if I'd been Tyrant earlier...but from the moment I became Tyrant and looked around...I realized one very interesting fact. The League was a...straightjacket for those IN the League...and an insurmountable wall for those OUTSIDE the League. From the moment I got my legs under me until now, I've been straining that straightjacket and that wall as much as I could. And i think the leaders of Strombran realized I was doing that (without contacting me OOC by the way) and started pushing right back in ways that would force me to strain things further.
We've basically been fighting each other for months, doing a steady drum beat of ratcheting up pressure to see who would blink first. And neither one us were blinking. And now we are in open war.
The Minas Leon/Rieleston Federation is gone.
The Cagil/Strombran/Tara Federation is minus Tara.
And most of the other alliances are in flux with major fighting gearing up.
It took us a while to roll things up. Should it have been done earlier? Yeah. As a player, I agree that it should have been done long ago. As the character of Regstav absolutely not. Regstav wanted strength for Tara. Most of you probably have no idea how hard it was for me as a player to get things into a position where Regstav would finally take the step he did. He's a bloody stubborn character... But yeah. I think it should have been done earlier.
Now we have a crop of new rulers in almost every member nation of the League, and we are all willing to as players burn down what has taken years to build. Because we want to make things more fun for everyone. We've been working towards this for months. We almost had it a year ago when I first became Tyrant. But...I was still in Regstav player mode. I could not imagine Tara without Cagil back then so I did everything it took to rebuild the alliance. It wasn't until I was done that I looked at Atamara as a ruler who was supposed to make things exciting for my players that I realized the trap of the situation. I just didn't see what was going on out there in the rest of the continent until then. That was my error as a player. I fully recognize that.
I had two choices. From a ruler player perspective devoted to making things more exciting for the continent, I should have picked option number 2. Of course, at that time Tara probably would have died if I'd picked Option 2. But it certainly would have made things exciting for the continent. I did the right thing by my character. As Regstav I rebuilt the alliance that he could not imagine being without. The only thing I can say in my defense is that I didn't know how badly things were locked in by the League at that time. I didn't have enough experience. This is not my first time being a ruler. This IS the first time I've been a LONG time ruler though. Looking at it now, I realize that a good ruler SHOULD look at things just a little bit OOC. Your job as a ruler is to make sure your players have fun. And part of that is making sure OTHER players have fun as well. I didn't have that point of view when I first became Tyrant.
After months of working all this up though, I can say that all of us new rulers are looking at the continent with those just slightly OOC eyes. It's time to make a change. Past time really, but...well...there's nothing we can do about the past. So we've been working for months to destabilize things in ways that work IC and now...well...it's done gone unstable now and there's nowhere to go but down...or...up...or whatever...
I'm sure our characters will be broken hearted.
And as a player I'll be giggling all the way to the bloodbath. ;)
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You still have time to bath in blood \o/
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Did somebody ask for numbers? (no one did but I have them for AT anyway.)
Same-realm doubles (as in pairs not nobles) (total noble count):
Rielston- 4 (11)
Strombran- 2 (21)
Minas Leon- 3 (16)
CE- 7 (48)
Tara- 6 (33)
Suville- 4 (18)
Talerium- 7 (34)
Caergoth- 3 (18)
Grand Duchy Wayburg- 2 (7)
Shadowhaven- 0 (4)
Doubles spread between realms: (25 doubles total)
CE/talerium- 2
CE/ML- 1
CE/strombran- 8
CE/Suville- 1
CE/Shadowhaven- 1
Caergoth/Shadowhaven-1
Tara/ML- 1
Tara/Caergoth- 3
Tara/Talerium- 3
Strombran/Caergoth- 1
Strombran/Suville- 1
Rielston/Caergoth- 1
Rielston/Talerium- 1
Also 5 of those doubles are advies sorry didn't keep track which. (one is a CE/CE one is a Tara/Talerium....)
In terms of nobles who are guaranteed to leave a particular realm (same realm pairs), this is going to hurt Rielston, GDW, and Suville the most. Is that an improvement I don't know. The split pairs are mostly going to slim down CE bloc (though not necessarily CE). Exception Shadowhaven, who might lose two nobles out of four if they like their other realms better.
Conclusion: It's going to depend on which way people bail. The results of this change could range from We have a chance! to WHY???
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I think it's obvious that rulers should always look at things with at least a small bit of OOC intention to keep things fun for other players. I'm pretty sure the game tells you this when you become ruler. It's in your job description. I just think a lot of people have failed at that over the years.
At this point, while it sounds like maybe you're promoting some interaction on AT, I have zero interest in it. There is no change that I would rather see than just the whole island sinking into the abyss. And I had some of my most fun moments there. While the island has been won, the only ones left are those who hadn't seen this problem for years. Now they've kicked everyone else out of the sandbox and have to play a new game without the others. That's fine, but I know I'm not alone in that the continent has been soured permanently for me.
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Great post, Medron. It is interesting to see how others view the situation, and to know that some on the opposite side see that there really was a problem.
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There may be a problem, but to thermonuke players who are trying to keep up the lore of an island they like by making their realms unsustainable due to a lack of people willing to do important roles.... For instance, FEI, Arcaea, had nobody wanting to be the banker for I believe 3 weeks. At that point we had to break the IC law and make my secondary character the banker of the realm. The primary character being the realm's ruler and effectively I now have 2 positions in the government which is against the law of Arcaea. As a result we've decided to ease up on the law because game mechanics were proving a challenge when RP was fine.
And now my plan to try and overturn the established order by having the secondary character recreate the Church of Ibladesh to cause some religious strife and war with the Sartanists already around in the Far East is in danger because I doubt I can have the Church up and running before the secondary character is forced off of the island and I have to make her a NPC support character again like when she was a page... this time she'll just become a private priest for her I suppose... *sighs*
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I think what character limit does is you actually have to commit a character instead of your filler. You can't play one good guy and one bad guy at the same time on the same continent anymore.
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I think what character limit does is you actually have to commit a character instead of your filler. You can't play one good guy and one bad guy at the same time on the same continent anymore.
It also forces you to suffer the consequences of not having people interested enough in filling positions. Other realms aren't having a problem. So it should be possible. If not, try and figure out how to attract more nobles. Go to war more, or RP everyday in the realm.
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Or plan a huge wedding RP and tell everyone about it. Then when it happened people think you just pulling it out of your ass.
Also silverfire! I missed you.
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If Moto could put it's two cents in.
I Will say that personally I enjoy playing two characters on the same island and especially when I was on Atamara "the island and I have a love hate relationship"
Having more than one noble in the same realm really does boost its strength but it could also kill a realm. Ex: if 4 players never talk but make up 8 nobles in a 10 noble realm ... That is one borring realm.
The new rule of one noble per island will cripple a lot of realm and many people in positions of power will not be happy. But I say go full steam ahead with it .
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Personally, I think AT is getting more interesting. Some may not like it like I don't like Dwilight. But really, that's a personal choice.
The argument that having 2 characters leads to a "primary" and a "support" character. If that's true, then that's true across the board. Someone who can't play 2 characters on a single island isn't likely to suddently be able to play 2 characters across the game. Part of what BM's charm is the ability to take on several characters and the challenge of playing the different ones.
Otherwise, you just have copies of the same island over and over again. Instead, I have multiple characters interacting with different groups. Some people that one character may be aligned with on one islnd I may be against on another or not even know them at all. That's the BM charm. If we remove this, we should do the next "logical" step and just make everyone have one character. Yes, it would remove everything that made BM special, but if that's the goal, let's do it.
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You're saying that you're not willing to slightly adjust your RP for the sake of a better, healthier game? That maintaining your two-character-on-an-island RP is more important than helping make the game better, and more active/dynamic, for everyone?
No, we're saying we aren't willing to adjust our play style for your conception of what a better, healthier game could be. This isn't going to make the game more active, because you aren't adding anything to any of the islands, you're taking away. At best, you're hoping that we all agree with you. Your plan is wholly dependant upon our cooperation to have any chance of success. And if we do cooperate, there's a chance it might help make the game better from your perspective. I, for one, am not going to play along.
I've tried the other islands several times throughout my decade of playing, and they've always been !@#$. I have no intention of playing on them again. I also won't be renewing my donations going forward either. I disagree with this decision, and I don't feel Tom deserves my financial support until and unless this is revoked. Call it throwing a tantrum if you like, I don't care. I've told Tom before on the mailing list that ideas he had were stupid, and I'll say it here too. Whoever thought of this is an idiot.
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The argument that having 2 characters leads to a "primary" and a "support" character. If that's true, then that's true across the board. Someone who can't play 2 characters on a single island isn't likely to suddently be able to play 2 characters across the game. Part of what BM's charm is the ability to take on several characters and the challenge of playing the different ones.
I'm sorry... but that is some incredibly fail logic right there. The argument is that having 2 characters on the same island leads to a primary and a support character, not that just having 2 in the whole game leads to that. There's a huge difference between playing two characters in the same place and playing two in different islands.
No, we're saying we aren't willing to adjust our play style for your conception of what a better, healthier game could be. This isn't going to make the game more active, because you aren't adding anything to any of the islands, you're taking away. At best, you're hoping that we all agree with you. Your plan is wholly dependant upon our cooperation to have any chance of success. And if we do cooperate, there's a chance it might help make the game better from your perspective. I, for one, am not going to play along.
I've tried the other islands several times throughout my decade of playing, and they've always been !@#$. I have no intention of playing on them again. I also won't be renewing my donations going forward either. I disagree with this decision, and I don't feel Tom deserves my financial support until and unless this is revoked. Call it throwing a tantrum if you like, I don't care. I've told Tom before on the mailing list that ideas he had were stupid, and I'll say it here too. Whoever thought of this is an idiot.
Well I'm glad you don't care, because that's what we'll call it. :3
And your choice on the donations. This is a free game, they aren't necessary to play. Also, it sounds like you're the kind of person who went into playing another island expecting it to end badly, and cherry picking negative things to fit that view. ^-^
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Well you've donated to get another character... It won't be necessary anymore since you can practically play on all islands without donating money.
You have to realize at this point, it is all about making the experience better for newer players not the old players.
Everyone leaves the game at some point. People who wish to stay will stay longer while people who didn't have much to do will leave. I am sure there are some people who are playing out of the old habit of logging in and pressing buttons.
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Your plan is wholly dependant upon our cooperation to have any chance of success.
The entire game is dependant on the cooperation of the players. If the players want to sabotage the game, there are plenty of ways they can do that.
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I've said my piece on the point of dual characters.
Blaming them for issues caused by entirely different things is wrong.
Changing the rules to take gameplay options away from the players is wrong.
This is a game. It should be fun.
And this change will greatly affect the fun I can have in the game.
I can't say I will leave over this. But the more options are taken away from me as a player, the less reasons I will have to play, and the more reasons I will have to leave.
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The entire game is dependant on the cooperation of the players. If the players want to sabotage the game, there are plenty of ways they can do that.
Oh, so disagreeing with you is sabotaging the game now? You're a real shining example of a community leader, you know that? Honestly, I couldn't have more respect for you as a human being right now.
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Oh, so disagreeing with you is sabotaging the game now? You're a real shining example of a community leader, you know that? Honestly, I couldn't have more respect for you as a human being right now.
Honestly, I'm almost speechless. The lack of intelligence you're showing, to make a leap of faith that wide for that kind of logic astounds me. You have to twist his words pretty hard to have gotten that out of a simple factual statement. The fact is this: in a role-playing game, players need to willingly cooperate with the setting of the game and the IC/OOC etiquette, or you quickly have things like I Can't Believe It's Not Butter being a common realm name and the whole atmosphere of the game is ruined.
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Wow....
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At least its a healthier alternative to butter.
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Well, this is getting grim quite quickly. I mean I feel strongly against the change but some of the statements here are a bit overboard; it's a bloody game. I'm frustrated by having the second character, which I've been building up through roleplay for quite a while (dunno how long 11 IC years are so bleh), taken away by what I consider a dumb change.
If you get this worked up about a game, maybe it's time to consider playing something else that doesn't get your blood pressure through the roof when the people in charge of the game make a mistake. :)
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Even though some of the statements here have been a bit more inflammatory than required I have to agree with the general sentiment that there are a few voices on these forums that get respect more for their tenure in the game than any real benefit their ideas are bringing to the table.
Less characters per continent will bring no tangible benefit to the game and in some cases will hurt things due to restricting certain active players who want to improve situations on certain islands by using the potential influence multiple characters on a continent brings, or at the least reducing the number of units a realm can bring to a siege.
I'm still waiting to hear a real benefit this change will bring other than "so and so the veteran thinks its a good idea due their own subjective experience of having too many characters" or "we have to do SOMEthing!"
No, we dont have to do SOME thing, we have to do the RIGHT thing, or this will be another situation where dev overreaction loses the game more players than it gains.
You're not gaining a whole lot of new players as far as I can see. So your best bet is to keep the players you have and try to figure out a way to keep the scant new ones that find their way in. Game mechanics won't help the latter - that is up to established players to welcome and foster newbies in what can be an overwhelming game.
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People who will leave from this change would have left in a year or two anyway. The dev team is clearly hoping to keep what little new players we get. If we get 0 new players, the game will die by the end of next year anyway at this rate. People will always complain about changes. Why do you actually need multiple characters to achieve something? Why can't you just do it with one character?
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People keep saying this will mean less characters per island, as if all the doubles are going to go up in smoke. I would think that if you could no longer play two nobles on one island, you'd play two nobles on two islands. You might get a few less characters in the end because of dissatisfied players leaving, but you would still end up with more players per island than before. Players, not characters. Which can only benefit the current state of stagnation.
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I play on the Continents I find fun and interesting.
I have played on the others and did not care for them.
Being forced to remove one character from a continent will not cause me to move a character to a continent I found boring in the past.
It will cause me to pause that character and not play the game as much.
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I play on the Continents I find fun and interesting.
I have played on the others and did not care for them.
Being forced to remove one character from a continent will not cause me to move a character to a continent I found boring in the past.
It will cause me to pause that character and not play the game as much.
Maybby you should test those boring islands after changes kick in? I bet many islands and many realms will have changes and propably those will become more intresting.
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People who will leave from this change would have left in a year or two anyway. The dev team is clearly hoping to keep what little new players we get. If we get 0 new players, the game will die by the end of next year anyway at this rate. People will always complain about changes. Why do you actually need multiple characters to achieve something? Why can't you just do it with one character?
To add more depth to the game by having more interesting characters around; normally done when there'd actually be more than a few other players per realm? I mean if you want your second character on an island to be a flat 2D piece of plywood then by my bloody guest; but I've been characterizing and working up my second character to be an invested and interesting member of my realm. If you don't like RP that's fine and all but keep in mind that some people actually give a crud about what they write and they are not just trying to game a system that is full of holes to begin with.
People keep saying this will mean less characters per island, as if all the doubles are going to go up in smoke. I would think that if you could no longer play two nobles on one island, you'd play two nobles on two islands. You might get a few less characters in the end because of dissatisfied players leaving, but you would still end up with more players per island than before. Players, not characters. Which can only benefit the current state of stagnation.
In fact, I'd drop down to 1 character on 1 island because I still have no interest in the other islands. At this time they are null and void to me and thus I will stick to the FEI. And if people decide the FEI isn't good enough to keep around and she's left homeless? Dunno, might just retire her on her fictional island that isn't in the game cuz I made it for her backstory anyway.
Furthermore, I agree with Medron's stance. In my case the character will be paused and turn into a RP NPC supporting character for my ruler character on the Far East.
And as for jaune's argument; I'm sure there will be alot of changes, but they're not what I'm invested in. I'm invested in my 1 island where I've been researching the history and lore of to write adequate RP and get myself into the 'vibe' of. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I like the Far East; it's an interesting island and is rich with opportunities. The problem is that most people seem to have irrational hatred for the place and thus refuse to come on over for a cup of tea and some roleplay.
And with the degree of investment that I have to put into stuff, I'm not inclined to go to say Atamara, Belthingymejiggum or wherever. Maybe East Continent.. but bleh; I mainly use that as a place to antagonize in my character's storyline so that'd not make any sense at all. *shrugs~ I'm stubborn so I know nobody will sway my opinion anyway and I know my opinion isn't appreciated but I will voice it nontheless because I'm actually rather frustrated about this suicidal character purge.
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I think you're making several very dangerous and flawed assumptions. First of all, I'm pretty sure that people do appreciate all the (positively placed) input like yours. With positive, I mean the non inflamatory kind. Just as you may not agree with others however, some may not agree with you. This doesn't mean they don't appreciate input.
Secondly, I think you're doing Lapallanch short if you say that he doesn't like RP. In fact, I've found him one of the most creative, RP'ing and fun players to play with. None of his chars are the same for instance. There are different ways of RP'ing of course and people take fun out of different aspects of the game. Personally I've tried almost all continents, but didn't find FEI to be particularly more RP'ing strong than any other continent. In fact, Dwilight for me holds much more RP, although EC also does well these days. I'm also losing a char which I RP'd entirely separate from the other on the same continent, but I do see the reason behind this change. I might not entirely like it, but I also see the problem of most players who have 2 chars, who RP a lot less like that.
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Maybe so, and I do apologize if I actually offended someone with my choice of words.
In my increasing frustration I may have utilized some more heated phrases than I normally would. But it doesn't change my outlook on the situation, with the feedback I've been getting from people I've talked to in the Far East I think I can safely say that this is generally considered to be a change for the worse; at least on the FEI. And while appearantly a fair number/most people here seem to want FEI to be closed down, as one of the people who enjoys playing on the FEI and has enjoyed doing so for some time; I cannot help but feel strongly against this change which feels like it'll cause significant damage to the efforts to make the experience on FEI better for those less invested in the background lore of the place.
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Maybe so, and I do apologize if I actually offended someone with my choice of words.
In my increasing frustration I may have utilized some more heated phrases than I normally would. But it doesn't change my outlook on the situation, with the feedback I've been getting from people I've talked to in the Far East I think I can safely say that this is generally considered to be a change for the worse; at least on the FEI. And while appearantly a fair number/most people here seem to want FEI to be closed down, as one of the people who enjoys playing on the FEI and has enjoyed doing so for some time; I cannot help but feel strongly against this change which feels like it'll cause significant damage to the efforts to make the experience on FEI better for those less invested in the background lore of the place.
We have all invested in a certain island. I know it is terrible to lose islands you've played on but the game just can't maintain so many islands any longer. Surprisingly we still get new players here and there and due to low density and silent characters - most of them being people's second on the continent people don't really care much about, new people just don't stick around. Only 1 out of 10 people who try the game actually stick around and imagine if we can keep 1 more or 2 more out of 10.
Reducing characters will 'force' people to focus on one character per continent. This has been proven on dwilight for the past 5 years. I know people are finally starting to do something interesting on other continents as well but some places need to be closed and some can't.
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We have all invested in a certain island. I know it is terrible to lose islands you've played on but the game just can't maintain so many islands any longer. Surprisingly we still get new players here and there and due to low density and silent characters - most of them being people's second on the continent people don't really care much about, new people just don't stick around. Only 1 out of 10 people who try the game actually stick around and imagine if we can keep 1 more or 2 more out of 10.
Reducing characters will 'force' people to focus on one character per continent. This has been proven on dwilight for the past 5 years. I know people are finally starting to do something interesting on other continents as well but some places need to be closed and some can't.
I'm aware, I've tried to get my friends to play it but well... they got turned off by the lack of random RP banter, the flash game attached to the RPG part of the game and various other reasons. That and stagnation made a few of my friends who invited me to play this game with them quit so yeah; I've stuck around biting down into my character and having her try and be more of a living breathing person than just Doombot2.0. And the same goes for her adopted cousin (the second character) which went from NPC to PC through a few interesting ordeals involving a royal, a head of church and the main character who at the time was a lord. So losing her as a character will hurt; but she'll stick around as NPC anyway I suppose. Setting that up just in case atm, having the island plop from under them is going to be... traumatizing to say the least.
Also, I may be slightly annoyed by the fact that I was this close to reviving the Church of Ibladesh over in the Far East to start a war with the Church of Sartan! Grrrr, so close yet so far away! Would've been a fun way to set FEI ablaze though if I do say so myself...
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I'm aware, I've tried to get my friends to play it but well... they got turned off by the lack of random RP banter, the flash game attached to the RPG part of the game and various other reasons. That and stagnation made a few of my friends who invited me to play this game with them quit so yeah; I've stuck around biting down into my character and having her try and be more of a living breathing person than just Doombot2.0. And the same goes for her adopted cousin (the second character) which went from NPC to PC through a few interesting ordeals involving a royal, a head of church and the main character who at the time was a lord. So losing her as a character will hurt; but she'll stick around as NPC anyway I suppose. Setting that up just in case atm, having the island plop from under them is going to be... traumatizing to say the least.
Also, I may be slightly annoyed by the fact that I was this close to reviving the Church of Ibladesh over in the Far East to start a war with the Church of Sartan! Grrrr, so close yet so far away! Would've been a fun way to set FEI ablaze though if I do say so myself...
You will have a better chance at recreating that on EC soon. Not yet but soon.
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You will have a better chance at recreating that on EC soon. Not yet but soon.
Maybe, but the point is to have it revive in the main character's realm... but since the only 2 faithful atm are my characters... and I need the ruler to set things in motion using her diplomatic skills so this will complicate things. Ah well, I'll find a way...
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The church of Sartan is essentially dead. Again. It's just a name anymore.
Look at it this way: if your second character died (executed, killed in battle, deported, etc.) would you quit the game? Or would you carry on? Essentially, that's all that changing the character limit will do. It will have one of your characters end their story line.
And again: if you haven't been on an island recently, you haven't been on that island.
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Essentially, that's all that changing the character limit will do. It will have one of your characters end their story line.
Will it? Characters don't have to be nailed to a particular island, do they? Take a ship, explore new lands, and see if you can rise to power someplace where your family influence means little or nothing.
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The church of Sartan is essentially dead. Again. It's just a name anymore.
Look at it this way: if your second character died (executed, killed in battle, deported, etc.) would you quit the game? Or would you carry on? Essentially, that's all that changing the character limit will do. It will have one of your characters end their story line.
And again: if you haven't been on an island recently, you haven't been on that island.
Too bad, I had fond recollections of the CoS as well as the CoI. I had to leave though because I didn't have enough time to play the religious part properly enough anymore.
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If this is the same as having a character executed, why not simply allow such executions?
If you want to limit people to one character per island, allow nations to execute multi-characters.
Or stop people from being able to create second characters, allow executions, and wait for the players to thin out the ranks on their own.
That would certainly be less disruptive than suddenly forcing so many nobles to move or pause on some random day...
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It would also strongly encourage exactly the behaviour we are seeking to eliminate: having a second character be nothing but a drone, contributing nothing of real meaning. Players who didn't want to lose their second character would keep them safe behind walls, never putting them in a situation where they could be captured and executed.
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Also, people with a second duke on the same continent... I am sorry but there has way too many cases of the same family holding two ducal or two vital lordship positions over the years.
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Re: executions
Universal death has its own problems. And allowing universal death only for specific people is pretty exploitable, and fundamentally unfair.
We can't have different limits for different people. We can't grandfather multi characters, it gives older accounts access to the very advantages were trying to get rid of. Everyone needs to play by the same rules.
Increased character mortality is something that would be good, as it can promote change, which we want. Enforcing too much mortality is counterproductive, as it penalizes active characters, which we don't want to do.
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Also, people with a second duke on the same continent... I am sorry but there has way too many cases of the same family holding two ducal or two vital lordship positions over the years.
That's what we wanted to prevent in our realm on FEI at least; until we spent a few weeks without a banker and thus my second character was more or less forced into the role to prevent the realm from taking damage from the lack of willingness from other players to take responsibility. Said character is the banker of the realm and holds a second city region in my realm. Both are technically against the law in the realm but until more people show up who are willing to take such positions of power and responsibility we've been forced to utilize it. We've been actively trying to grant our newer nobles positions of lordship but they lack the mandatory honor/prestige requirements at this time. (That and the city my second character holds is notoriously annoying to keep in check, I have the secondary character doing extensive maintainance on a daily basis or the city destabilizes and causes trouble in the space of 2-3 days while she does her bankery business in her study....) Oh well, it'd be nice if people'd come on over and live with us in FEI... it's fun and my character still have cake and tea on offer. >_>; And Lordships; we got plenty of those as well. :p
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That's what we wanted to prevent in our realm on FEI at least; until we spent a few weeks without a banker and thus my second character was more or less forced into the role to prevent the realm from taking damage from the lack of willingness from other players to take responsibility. Said character is the banker of the realm and holds a second city region in my realm. Both are technically against the law in the realm but until more people show up who are willing to take such positions of power and responsibility we've been forced to utilize it. We've been actively trying to grant our newer nobles positions of lordship but they lack the mandatory honor/prestige requirements at this time. (That and the city my second character holds is notoriously annoying to keep in check, I have the secondary character doing extensive maintainance on a daily basis or the city destabilizes and causes trouble in the space of 2-3 days while she does her bankery business in her study....) Oh well, it'd be nice if people'd come on over and live with us in FEI... it's fun and my character still have cake and tea on offer. >_>; And Lordships; we got plenty of those as well. :p
This is purely my opinion, and I'm pretty sure I hold zero influence in how game changes move forward, but the situation you describe is one where I think your second character is causing more harm than good. If you didn't have that character, your realm would have more problems. There would be unrest in the city and due to lack of a banker. That is a good thing. It's the game telling you that you need to make more effort to retain and attract players to your realm. If things were actually falling apart, people would have to work harder at making the realm interesting.
Feel free to disagree, but I can only see opportunity arise and more interaction take place if your regions like that city were to start revolting, or go rogue. This allows other realms opportunity for conflict, expansion, or cooperation. All of that is prevented by the second character. While I can see why you wouldn't want your realm to experience it, such consequences cause conflict, and conflict keeps people interested in the game.
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I appreciate the opinion actually, from a gameplay perspective we would much rather drop the city off since it's a rather insanely large burden on the realm as a whole. It's been rogue for quite a while before it was restored by my primary character. From a RP perspective, the reason she's holding the city for her aunt is because it has been the home she grew up in and thus is the most attuned noble in the realm to deal with the city's perks and nuisances.
And alot of people want the city cuz it's a massive vanity booster.... but when they get it, the city bites the hand that feeds it so to speak. I fully expect the city to go rogue when the second character returns to her NPC status; though she will still be present and have some influence on RP, she won't affect the gameplay any longer which is appearantly what people want. *shrugs*
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What people want is an end to stagnation. If second characters aid stagnation, then they need to go.
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What people want is an end to stagnation. If second characters aid stagnation, then they need to go.
They want an end of stagnation without losing their second characters 8)
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I want it all! Character limits! Mortality!
At the very least in battle, nobody should be beyond Death's reach. It's getting ridiculous to see centenarians charge into battle, take (sometimes grievous) injuries, and survive all the time.
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It would also strongly encourage exactly the behaviour we are seeking to eliminate: having a second character be nothing but a drone, contributing nothing of real meaning. Players who didn't want to lose their second character would keep them safe behind walls, never putting them in a situation where they could be captured and executed.
If they never leave the walls, they will never boost the army's might and make the nation more powerful, which as I understand it is what is claimed as the reason for getting rid of dual characters.
As for multi-dukes, you could merely say that it is no longer allowed and anyone caught doing it will have their character banned.
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They want an end of stagnation without losing their second characters 8)
That's correct; and what if the second characters aid in dealing with the stagnation? What will you do then, when say the limit get downscaled and stagnation gets worse? Has that been calculated into the plans?
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They want an end of stagnation without losing their second characters 8)
The correlation is faulty. Realms need nobles to fight - internal and external - wars.
You're right that 2nd characters are often much more silent than primary ones. However that's an OOC time issue, it won't change when those characters are dumped on another continent.
I'm more likely to delete my 2nd character than move him tbh, it'll free up time for my primary characters. So that's a good thing for my characters, but less so for the game's noble count and resulting stagnation.
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My two pence worth in the debate would be marginally against the character/continent limit change. I do think overall decline is being incorrectly blamed too much on 2 characters on continents. I am, boo hiss, a 2 character player in a small kingdom, but that suits well my non extrovert and not top % activity approach to the game (in a larger kingdom such as the very fine Luria Nova, where I was recently I would/did not feel active enough to take on lordships/roles etc).
It may be too late in the day (and fiddly) to consider, but increased mortality seems a much better approach, specifically with that mortality significantly amplified for all 2nd character players via battles and assassins (even just plain old age, ideally with a week or twos pre-warning?). Add to that, second character players could accumulate honour and prestige much slower so that change is real and more constant.
With increased mortality but 1 character a continent I think you encourage people to see that as a natural breaking point from that continent or even the game. I think you need the stubbornness of players who feel invested in the realms as much as it has some draw backs.
Where I think the real concern comes is that in our efforts to retain more characters for the realm we are in, we seem to lose more to apathy and not wanting to step up to activity (sorry but I can’t commit as much time as the position deserves, is a more common parting message than; I am going because I never get a chance to try what I want is my own experience). You could go increasingly extreme with the mortality and honour penalties until you get the levels of regeneration needed. All with whatever limits on lordships/offices thought appropriate per family too.
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The correlation is faulty. Realms need nobles to fight - internal and external - wars.
You're right that 2nd characters are often much more silent than primary ones. However that's an OOC time issue, it won't change when those characters are dumped on another continent.
I'm more likely to delete my 2nd character than move him tbh, it'll free up time for my primary characters. So that's a good thing for my characters, but less so for the game's noble count and resulting stagnation.
Noble count is not useful to the game in and of itself. Only participatory nobles fight stagnation.
So if you delete a drone noble, and gain more time for your primary noble, that's a double win for the game. Triple if you consider the fact that removing the drone makes it clearer just how many "active" noble characters there really are.
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Well, if you say that the vast majority of 2nd characters are drones, drones being silent non-entities, then you're right. In my experience they're mostly less developed or more silent but still participate and it's a bit of a stretch to blame the relative silence in realms on those nobles, because without them, there'd be even less going on.
Then again, it wouldn't be the first time that my experience is a bad indicator of the status of the game.
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Noble count is not useful to the game in and of itself. Only participatory nobles fight stagnation.
So if you delete a drone noble, and gain more time for your primary noble, that's a double win for the game. Triple if you consider the fact that removing the drone makes it clearer just how many "active" noble characters there really are.
So by that logic, what if both nobles are participating in a realm and you remove one of them? Does that not seem counterproductive? Even if there are more drones than actual participatory secondary nobles. Removing the ones that are trying to fight the problem seems kinda like you're just making things worse. Maybe that's the wrong angle to look at it but that's what I'm seeing.
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So by that logic, what if both nobles are participating in a realm and you remove one of them? Does that not seem counterproductive? Even if there are more drones than actual participatory secondary nobles. Removing the ones that are trying to fight the problem seems kinda like you're just making things worse. Maybe that's the wrong angle to look at it but that's what I'm seeing.
And if we had a foolproof way to determine which was which, in the code, without human intervention, and make this clear to everyone so we're not accused of favoritism when we make some people delete or emigrate a character while others got to keep it, we'd do it in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, I don't believe there is such a way.
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And if we had a foolproof way to determine which was which, in the code, without human intervention, and make this clear to everyone so we're not accused of favoritism when we make some people delete or emigrate a character while others got to keep it, we'd do it in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, I don't believe there is such a way.
Just saying, it's not all as perfect as it may seem to people. And I seriously believe the change will cause more harm than good for that reason alone. If we want to fight stagnation, we need to be more active. Not dunk active characters which will only cause for additional stagnation and further decline. Eventhough I would much prefer to trade off my second character for even a single new player in my realm to have my ruler character take under her wings to guide and care for.
However, the question is; do we want to keep an imperfect system that allows us to fight stagnation or do we want a new imperfect system that may in fact promote stagnation. Additionally; would it be in any way shape or form reversable in case things do end up freezing up? Since some others and myself are currently trying to break the Far East out of its torpor and while we may be able to do so with just a single character each; it'd be easier and more likely to cause a bigger wave to do so with the other characters present until people stop being afraid of the Far East. We don't bite... hard....
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However, the question is; do we want to keep an imperfect system that allows us to fight stagnation or do we want a new imperfect system that may in fact promote stagnation.
I don't see how that's any more valid a question than, "Do we want to keep an imperfect system that we believe promotes stagnation, or do we want a new imperfect system that will allow us to fight stagnation?"
I don't think anyone's suggested that reducing the characters-per-continent limit is a perfect way to fight stagnation, only that it's likely to do more good than harm, in our view.
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And in our view it will do more harm than good.
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And in our view it will do more harm than good.
Very unfortunate.
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Your view, so far as I can tell, is based on "I have two characters, and I know they're both positive contributions, therefore most double-characters must be positive contributions!"
Our view, on the other hand, is based on a decade of observation of the behaviour of doublets in general, and their effects on certain parts of the game in particular.
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People who manage to play two fleshed-out characters on the same island are sadly not the norm. It's not even that people willingly end up having a secondary drone, it just usually ends up like that, especially when they're in the same realm. In most cases it would make no difference at all if the primary character just assumed all the titles of the secondary. Some people always argue that they need to get that second character to fill up holes in the hierarchy, but as others have said before, that's just propping up a realm that basically fails at keeping enough people together to function properly. Those realms will - and should - be the first to perish under the new rules.
It will be chaos for some time, for sure. But from chaos, order can be made again. Consider it a chance to prove that your secondaries aren't just meek followers, but individuals with their own ambitions.
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Sound like those who cannot bear to part with their second character on same island, either pause or send them off to other islands where they can spice things up. When more players involved in a realm, we will see participation and activity level go up(more individual players with many different aims and working style, rather than pushing button) hopefully. Hmmm, now what should I do with my second character? Send him back to FEI where he first came from? And look like FEI island is spicing up, just in time... So in short, if we lose many secondary characters in the realm, we need create something that can spark player's interest to join us. Am I right? Very soon you all will see many forum posts asking which island is interesting to join, and even which realm.
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I have two characters on the same continent that are equally important to me personally and have equal influence in changing the continent for the better.
I see so many posts here making silly assumptions about how people use their second chars. "Well they must be zombies!" "Well they must be exploiting something!"
How about no, the potentialities for second characters are far more than that. And zombie characters at least improve the ability to win an offensive siege which is all too difficult nowadays.
Address the game mechanic issues relating to sieges before you make this massive game changing mistake, please.
Also since only infiltrators and traitors can be executed I find a lot of this discussion silly... I don't see anyone hiding their second characters behind walls, so this is a silly argument.
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I have two characters on the same continent that are equally important to me personally and have equal influence in changing the continent for the better.
I see so many posts here making silly assumptions about how people use their second chars. "Well they must be zombies!" "Well they must be exploiting something!"
How about no, the potentialities for second characters are far more than that. And zombie characters at least improve the ability to win an offensive siege which is all too difficult nowadays.
Address the game mechanic issues relating to sieges before you make this massive game changing mistake, please.
Also since only infiltrators and traitors can be executed I find a lot of this discussion silly... I don't see anyone hiding their second characters behind walls, so this is a silly argument.
Except we've been observing this phenomenon of second character drones for ages now. it isn't an assumption, it is an observable fact.
You're just in denial about the whole thing. I would bet that if this were happening the other way around, and Battlemaster had always been one character per continent, you'd be equally up at arms because it is a change from your status quo.
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Sorry to tell you this but a single case doesn't represent everything.
As GundamMerc said, this decision is not coming out of nowhere. This has been discussed for YEARS. At least for the past 5 years.
They even dedicated a whole continent to test this - Dwilight. While AT was stuck in a political deadlock for a decade, Dwilight changed drastically even during its shorter lifespan.
Like many said before, YOU may not use your second character as a drone, title holder, or a spy, that doesn't mean others don't. There were way too many people abusing their second character to consolidate their first character's power and influence.
The negatives far outweighed the positives and now it is time to fix it.
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I have two characters on the same continent that are equally important to me personally and have equal influence in changing the continent for the better.
Same here, but I also agree with the devs on this one that most dual chars aren't so great. Also quick question, would your chars ever work against each other's interest? Those who actually do play in different realms often find themselves not willing to damage the other char's interest. See EC for instance, or AT even worse.
I see so many posts here making silly assumptions about how people use their second chars. "Well they must be zombies!" "Well they must be exploiting something!"
How about no, the potentialities for second characters are far more than that. And zombie characters at least improve the ability to win an offensive siege which is all too difficult nowadays.
Address the game mechanic issues relating to sieges before you make this massive game changing mistake, please.
I know they're thinking about making sieges easier as well. But the problem there is balance. I think a change to militia is where that discussion will be going. Would make me lose Oligarch, but I agree something needs to change there also.
Also since only infiltrators and traitors can be executed I find a lot of this discussion silly... I don't see anyone hiding their second characters behind walls, so this is a silly argument.
I'm pretty sure that was based on the dicussion of introducing mortality to 2nd chars.
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You're just in denial about the whole thing. I would bet that if this were happening the other way around, and Battlemaster had always been one character per continent, you'd be equally up at arms because it is a change from your status quo.
Yep. Remember when we switched from three characters per island, to two? The world didn't end that time, and it won't end this time.
(I don't remember it either. It was before my time...)
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Yep. Remember when we switched from three characters per island, to two? The world didn't end that time, and it won't end this time.
(I don't remember it either. It was before my time...)
I do!
And there was exactly the same kind of wailing and moaning and insistence that this would be a terrible, terrible thing.
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Ofcourse now thing is a bit diffrent. Back then it was because playerbase was growing fast and new island were introduced and needed characters. I'm still thinking this is good thing to do and should have done years ago (even thought i would have prolly be against it back then :D).
-Jaune
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I was around and I was one of the people moaning. :P
Or sympathyzing with the moaners anyway.
But well, doing something is better than doing nothing. I'm more looking forward to code changes coming at us though. :)
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I was around when the limit went from three to two. It did not hurt the game one bit. At first I was against dropping the limit down to one. But the more I think about it the more I think it is a good idea. I have played characters against each other in the past. Was going to even execute one of my own characters. Unfortunately did not get the chance as the war ended. Lately I have played the second character as a drone only to keep a realm alive. In my case the change would be a good one. Hopefully we would get more people in the realm willing to hold titles.
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Dear Dev Team,
Clearly you have made up your minds on the one character per island, so pick a day to implement the changes and be done with it; courtesy would dictate at least a few weeks to prepare for the actual change. Of course, this change will grind to a halt, for a time, all of the recent diplomatic and military activity on some of the "stale" islands (like Atamara), but hey, why let that get in the way?
Why you are at it, you should make a change that would actually have a larger effect on stagnation, and put in a natural death code to prevent all of those 100+ year old characters who occupy realm council and Duke positions. There is nothing meaningful left to accomplish RP-wise with characters of that age, and it would actually give new players a chance to rise to positions or power, especially the coveted Duke/Duchess position, where they can split to form new realms. And yes, I know of at least one Dev who had a 99 year old Duchess, but I am sure they were the exception to the "nothing meaningful left to RP" crowd. In my experience since joining the game almost 10 years ago, these old characters are just as likely, if not more so, than a second character on an island, to be a "drone." Combine this with the one player per island, and a player's own "replacement" can't be groomed from their character list.
While I am not a fan of the character limit change, mostly given the timing related to the recent events on Atamara, if it is inevitable, then announce the change and be consistent in taking steps to reduce stagnation and promote the enjoyment of new players by having a mass plague on all the islands that kills characters who are, at a minimum, over 100, with 85 probably being a better cut off.
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If the Devs think that having two identical characters with one droning on is a problem then why not combat that?
Require that people have two different TYPES of characters so they can't play them the same way?
If you think that people having two warriors to boost national army size is bad, then say people can't have two warriors.
There are four main classes we can be right now.
Warrior
Courtier
Priest
Adventurer
If people want two people on the same island, require that they be separate classes. Bam. No more duplicate drones only there to boost army strength and not doing anything else.
Also, it would encourage people to try out the other classes if they've never done that before.
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It's not about being identical. In fact, the problem is almost exactly the opposite of that: generally, one character is played as a main character, while the other is played as a drone or support character, either providing support specifically to the main character, or to the realm. (Sometimes this support is even in the form of spying in another realm.)
Requiring that the two characters be different classes would do absolutely nothing to combat this problem.
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Dear Dev Team,
Clearly you have made up your minds on the one character per island, so pick a day to implement the changes and be done with it; courtesy would dictate at least a few weeks to prepare for the actual change. Of course, this change will grind to a halt, for a time, all of the recent diplomatic and military activity on some of the "stale" islands (like Atamara), but hey, why let that get in the way?
Why you are at it, you should make a change that would actually have a larger effect on stagnation, and put in a natural death code to prevent all of those 100+ year old characters who occupy realm council and Duke positions. There is nothing meaningful left to accomplish RP-wise with characters of that age, and it would actually give new players a chance to rise to positions or power, especially the coveted Duke/Duchess position, where they can split to form new realms. And yes, I know of at least one Dev who had a 99 year old Duchess, but I am sure they were the exception to the "nothing meaningful left to RP" crowd. In my experience since joining the game almost 10 years ago, these old characters are just as likely, if not more so, than a second character on an island, to be a "drone." Combine this with the one player per island, and a player's own "replacement" can't be groomed from their character list.
While I am not a fan of the character limit change, mostly given the timing related to the recent events on Atamara, if it is inevitable, then announce the change and be consistent in taking steps to reduce stagnation and promote the enjoyment of new players by having a mass plague on all the islands that kills characters who are, at a minimum, over 100, with 85 probably being a better cut off.
A cute notion, the part where the 'stale' islands should just sit back and wait for death. My nobles and I are preparing to light up FEI like a christmas tree and one final campaign for old times' sake, for justice and the world's ending!!!
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A cute notion, the part where the 'stale' islands should just sit back and wait for death. My nobles and I are preparing to light up FEI like a christmas tree and one final campaign for old times' sake, for justice and the world's ending!!!
If you think that is what I meant, then you need to read my post again. The Devs think that limiting each player to one character per island will decrease the amount of stagnation in the game; I argue that it is all of the ridiculously ancient (100 year old+ characters) occupying realm council and lord positions that actually produces as much, if not more, stagnation as well as frustration for newer players that we are hoping to retain (but usually don't). So while I will begrudgingly accept the character limit, I would hope that the Devs would address the very real issue regarding the stagnation caused by no life-span limitation. Sure there are reduced hours and waiting for 1-2 weeks to heal from wounds, but many of these ancient Dukes just sit in their city, avoid combat and pad their family gold; this makes them much more a "drone" in many cases than a second character on an island.
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There's actually an active proposal in the dev board right now for an overhaul to how aging works.
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If you think that is what I meant, then you need to read my post again. The Devs think that limiting each player to one character per island will decrease the amount of stagnation in the game; I argue that it is all of the ridiculously ancient (100 year old+ characters) occupying realm council and lord positions that actually produces as much, if not more, stagnation as well as frustration for newer players that we are hoping to retain (but usually don't). So while I will begrudgingly accept the character limit, I would hope that the Devs would address the very real issue regarding the stagnation caused by no life-span limitation. Sure there are reduced hours and waiting for 1-2 weeks to heal from wounds, but many of these ancient Dukes just sit in their city, avoid combat and pad their family gold; this makes them much more a "drone" in many cases than a second character on an island.
It's both, really. A lot of these dinosaurs were agents of stagnation well before they reached the pension age, and younger characters are just as liable to have a drone hovering about.
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If you think that is what I meant, then you need to read my post again. The Devs think that limiting each player to one character per island will decrease the amount of stagnation in the game; I argue that it is all of the ridiculously ancient (100 year old+ characters) occupying realm council and lord positions that actually produces as much, if not more, stagnation as well as frustration for newer players that we are hoping to retain (but usually don't). So while I will begrudgingly accept the character limit, I would hope that the Devs would address the very real issue regarding the stagnation caused by no life-span limitation. Sure there are reduced hours and waiting for 1-2 weeks to heal from wounds, but many of these ancient Dukes just sit in their city, avoid combat and pad their family gold; this makes them much more a "drone" in many cases than a second character on an island.
No, I just didn't have an opinion about the lifespan thing; I intended to have my character die of natural causes around 85-90ish because she's not a Numenorean and thus can't reach ages of 180 like Aragorn can. And when she dies, a new generation will rise to continue her works and story with the help of my second character who will by that time be a supporting NPC.
And I'd be dishonest if I'd say I wouldn't mourn Viridiana, she's a beautiful character to play with.. but all beauty must at some day die. For all beauty fades, for that is why it is beautiful. :)
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My oldest character, Regstav, was born over 9 years ago. That's 91 years old in the game's relative age calculation. He's been a hero since at least 2010 and has for that entire time charged into battle at the head of a phalanx of cavalry. Against Daimons in Beluaterra. He has personally charged undead and monster populations that have more CS than he did. Without backup. He has believed most of his life that it is his duty to fight the destroyers of humanity, and that death in battle is ticket to the next world as one of the most honored warriors of the gods. And he still roleplays that he wields the fiery dragon sword he wielded in Beluaterra. The one with the teeth of every greater Daimon he helped kill bolted into it. He's up to 340 honor and 38 prestige. That puts him in the top 10 percent or so of the nobility of Atamara. And his death in battle might just put my family on the list of most famous families in the game.
I do not shelter him behind a wall. And for at least five years as a hero, in command of cavalry, every foe he has fought has kept on missing the opportunity to kill him. I'm not saying he's lived a charmed life or anything. But seriously. How does EVERYBODY miss a guy with a target that big painted all over him? Wielding a flaming fracking sword that says "I'm the leader. Take me if you dare." Granted, the last bit's RP, but...HOW does everybody miss him?
Not that I actually WANT him to die...but...He did come into this world kicking, screaming, and covered in someone else's blood. It only seems poetic that a hero check out the same way...
As for the class issue.
You do realize there four standard classes people can play?
And that of them, the warrior class is by far the most common? Because it happens to be most fun for most people?
If you lower people to one character per continent, without any option for playing a second character in one of the other three classes, you are going to end up with a whole lot of warrior chiefs and not very many support indians to help out the realms. And that, in my opinion, will very badly hurt this game and the realms that fill it.
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Here is an example.
Sirion on EC has 50 nobles. But Sirion has 13 families with 2 nobles each. That is 26 characters from those 13 families.
These families are holding
16 land titles
4 ducal titles
5 military titles
1 government title
between their 26 characters. If you get rid of their secondary characters, their noble count falls to 37 from 50. At the same time, it opens up several titles for others to hold. If they can't, that means Sirion has overextended.
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We have been reducing the need for those support classes. Courtiers are almost completely superfluous. Traders aren't really needed, either. And priests are only needed for religions.
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Why not divide the classes up?
Has access to
Warrior
-Hero
-Cav
-Infil
Courier
-Amb (feels pretty useless maybe should grant diplomatic immunity so you can't be captured even in an enemy land)
-Trader (useless)
Priest (Maybe should be a standalone class while being unable to hold any secular titles)
-No access to 2nd class
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From what I gather reading this discussion the main aim is to keep new players, and the one noble per player policy on Dwilight is seen as the way to do that. Correct?
If so then why not force new players to start on Dwilight for the next few months and see if this really does increase retention?
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From what I gather reading this discussion the main aim is to keep new players, and the one noble per player policy on Dwilight is seen as the way to do that. Correct?
If so then why not force new players to start on Dwilight for the next few months and see if this really does increase retention?
Not correct. Not directly, anyway... The concept, as I understand it, is that the one noble policy is one controllable factor of the overall retention. The policy theoretically creates a more dynamic atmosphere that promotes a positive experience for all players, which should primarily help the new blood since the old players have already stuck with it through thick and thin.
Dwilight as a location has no bearing on this other than as a testing ground for the policy. There are a number of different factors that could also affect player retention on Dwilight (primarily the Serious Medieval Atmosphere rule) that make it a bad test for direct player retention. Instead, you look at how much the island has changed politically, which indicates player-driven activity and stories. Since this policy has been in place since Dwilight's first days, there's no need to force new players into there for a month and see if they stick. There's enough data already.
Now you could argue that maybe it's even the SMA rule that causes the dynamic environment, but it would be a hard case to make. Something about Dwilight works... the next best option is to try recreating it entirely and starting from there - which would mean implementing both the one noble policy and SMA on all other islands.
EDIT: No content modified, just wanted to say... HEY! The wiki seems fixed! I don't need to re-upload my signature images! YAY!
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I've read only about half of this post and a few from others. Generally, there are those who will stay and who will not. Those that will stay are not going to outweigh any positive reaction while those who leave will give a negative reaction to the game. I for one, with my current characters placement, would be impact by this change but I would nevertheless, will still continue. But what worries me most is those who left especially some who really built their characters to attune with mine (even though secondary, not all just remains it as puppet). I can generally speak up that a lot of players will hate artificial changes or forced to make one. We cannot however force a character out of an island and I really suggest if 2 characters in the same island were to remain, a note like, "You are not allow to take political position (be it Lord, Duke or Council position) due to the influence of your family member that has another position", would be suffice. Yes, some realms may fall but I also understand the predicament of the players because they would wish to uphold that 'little history', nevertheless. If this 2 characters in the same island is remain and by imposing the position restriction, you can increase the density of knights per realm (which would very much improve region output).
However, with the changes made (to be made), making this changes would affect gameplay but I'm not out to detest these changes. I would like to recommend a little tweak because if one can take away, one should also give. My recommendation may or may not be justified but I feel this is what is needed to be done:
1: Old characters
- There is surely more old characters around in the game and one very difficult issue is the hours in a turn, tuning it will get rid of the dependency of a second character using it as a puppet to attain scout reports or do what the primary character isn't able to do. We are already getting 16 hours per turn (8 hours per turn) and there's not much you can do even with that. It will be okay if one keeps it but it is a penalty if characters are on the move and I'm sure many are prompted for a second character because of this. Either release the age penalty or increase the age whereby the age penalty would come to affect. I justify this with the second character usually far apart in age with the primary character.
2: Scouting
- It takes an hour to scout which is costly. I would suggest whereby scouting doesn't take any hours at all because it doesn't make sense to take the character's hour when the scout is actually doing the moving. When one sends a scout, it will take an hour or two in real-time for the reports to generate OR instant reports but with the report being inaccurate. Increasing the perks of how scout would value a battalion where the scout judge by banners when an army is stationed (scouts shouldn't be able to come near a camp) and maybe by marching movement if on the move (more accurate), I believe would bring a very far ahead excitement to the game. Yeah, a bit complicated but it's an idea.
3: Priest
- Priest characters are counted as noble counts and the priesthood is acting less a noble in average, the character itself, is under-powered. Tuning the priest character and allow more restricted actions can bring out what religion can bring to the game. Battlemaster (the name says itself) is all about how one can bring war into a nation and I would very much like to see sparking more crusade war. This would not only make it more lively but enhance creativity (which I have seen a lot). Put in more function and the players will let the ball rolling. With the one per island change, a priest can be closed to useless and would not encourage people to get that character (some may disagree but I will go with agree to disagree). Lastly, take out the restriction where a religion falls when their last priest leaves. A priest should be a way to strengthen a religion and maybe a spirituous leader, nothing less. Without a priest, I can see the religion falling by itself, there's no need for expecting that religion to fall if there's no priest anyway. You would expect realms to be closing shops but I see religions will be impacted more if nothing is done.
All these may attune BM to a more heavier game but I would like to beg a differ as giving so much feature doesn't mean a player would use them all. And sorry if it's long 8)
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DK, in my opinion you make some great observations and a few lesser ones as well :-)
Firstly, further restricting the capabilities of second chars (no lordship or whatever) will only worsen the drone aspect, not lessen. There are in fact 2 problems with dual characters on the same island. In many cases they are a drone to serve in the army of the primary character so his realm becomes stronger and his power is more secure. Secondly is when you do go into 2 different realms, it's often difficult to have these chars work against each other, leaving extremely strong ties between nations. Especially when both chars become important (Dukes or whatever). So in this regard, I don't really agree with your suggestion.
1: Old characters
- Personally I would have a different solution: Introduce mortality for all chars and make it more likely as the char gets older. It's rather rediculous to see 110 year olds lead a charge of cavalry don't you think? This would provide more opportunities in the game as well as Dukes and all (often older chars) die and leave a space for another to fill. I do agree though that the aging for the hours could start a bit later. But it makes sense that once you're like 60, it takes more time to do some things, which means you have less hours available. If it really bothers someone, they can always retire the char and start a fresh.
2: I agree entirely on this point.
3: I agree mostly on this one as well. Perhaps it's an option to make the priest similar to an adventurer with very limited impact directly via game mechanics. The religion game is almost dead, because most people don't want to 'sacrifice' a char for this. It would be interesting to get it back to life again and I think this may very well help.
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We've tried delayed scout reports before, and they were a disaster. True, they were delayed by a full turn, but a disaster. Delaying anything will be universally despised, and also be a huge disadvantage for everyone who can't play multiple times per turn. This would make it extremely important for people to log in at specific times. It simply won't happen.
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We've tried delayed scout reports before, and they were a disaster. True, they were delayed by a full turn, but a disaster. Delaying anything will be universally despised, and also be a huge disadvantage for everyone who can't play multiple times per turn. This would make it extremely important for people to log in at specific times. It simply won't happen.
Point taken. But scouting still takes a lot of time, which doesn't make sense. Perhaps making it cost 1 hour to scout as many regions as you want at one time or something?
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Is scouting really the issue here? Nothing wrong with it IMO.
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I don't see any problem with it either.
If your character is old as hell, then it will definitely be an issue. Then again if your character is really that old, you should probably retire the character.
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Now you could argue that maybe it's even the SMA rule that causes the dynamic environment, but it would be a hard case to make. Something about Dwilight works... the next best option is to try recreating it entirely and starting from there - which would mean implementing both the one noble policy and SMA on all other islands.
I'd be interested to know the proportion of players who were active prior to the western island being closed who still have active characters on Dwilight.
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Out of the 5 nobles I was playing until the overall limit change was applied I have one who could be argued is a drone - though that's certainly not how I see her. And to be able to log in it wasn't her I nerfed because she has a lot of history that matters to me and is heavily involved in the Colonies' main current war.
Instead I paused my noble on Dwilight (that shining beacon of awesome which people keep extolling) as the Blood Stars soap opera just isn't that interesting to me. At least when the western island was open it was possible to play in realms which weren't obsessed with the bickering of clerics! Not to mention the amusement of tangling with the Zuma...
The other continent I have two characters on is EC, and both are in Sirion. One's a priestess who's dedicated most of her life to holding the family's most treasured estate despite the vicissitudes of war, the other a young warrior keeping up the family martial tradition. If I axe the priestess that's probably the end of The Flow as there aren't that many players interested in the priest game. Meanwhile if I axe the warrior that closes a whole story arc I'm hoping to explore over the next year or two.
As for the three active adventurer slots I now have available, I tried the adventurer game a couple of times and it's just not that interesting. There's too much grind and - like the priest game - not enough variability in basic game mechanics. At least with a priest there's wide scope for political intrigue whereas that just doesn't seem to happen with adventurers.
Ultimately the changes on character limits and the rhetoric around them leave me feeling like I'm a problem, like my playing style is somehow "abusive" or "cheating", and that the time I've invested in the parts of the game I enjoy has somehow contributed to the decline in player numbers. For all I know these things may actually be true, in which case forcing me to make a Solomon's judgement over which stories to continue and which to terminate may be a good thing for the game as a whole.
But do I really want to continue playing a game where several years of hard work to achieve mostly modest IC goals can be swept away by a change of gaming policy? That's a question I'm still debating.
And I know from OOC discussions with other players that I'm not alone in questioning my future commitment to a game which has brought me much pleasure, and where I hope I've contributed to the enjoyment of other players.
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Again, why do people keep insisting this change forces them to kill off any of their characters? Just migrate and continue their stories on a different island. And if a bunch of nobles are leaving the same realm, why not team up?
I see many people here complaining about all their hard work being for nothing, which is patently untrue. As long as there are enough islands to play on, no character has to be retired, merely moved. Also, nobody is insinuating that you're cheating or abusing the game. Nobody is even saying that you, the one reading all of this, are to blame for the stagnation that plagues the game. We're saying that broadly speaking, too many characters are bare-bones automatons with no real history or future, and little purpose other than propping up the people in power in realms that have long since become stale. This will unavoidably and regrettably result in some people being swept up who don't contribute to the boredom, but that's always going to be the case. But again, this doesn't force you to retire anyone. Move them elsewhere, and start writing the next chapters in their tales.
And, perhaps, if this change does turn out to be a dud, who's to day that it won't be reverted, and then you can just go back to your old homes, assuming you still want to at that point.
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Indeed: One thing to remember is, if you're active and interested enough to even be posting on this forum, the chances of you being a part of this particular problem are very slim.
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In addition, you can always move the warrior to Dwilight again. The blood stars soap is pretty much over and things have changed a lot again.
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Out of the 5 nobles I was playing until the overall limit change was applied I have one who could be argued is a drone - though that's certainly not how I see her. And to be able to log in it wasn't her I nerfed because she has a lot of history that matters to me and is heavily involved in the Colonies' main current war.
Instead I paused my noble on Dwilight (that shining beacon of awesome which people keep extolling) as the Blood Stars soap opera just isn't that interesting to me. At least when the western island was open it was possible to play in realms which weren't obsessed with the bickering of clerics! Not to mention the amusement of tangling with the Zuma...
The other continent I have two characters on is EC, and both are in Sirion. One's a priestess who's dedicated most of her life to holding the family's most treasured estate despite the vicissitudes of war, the other a young warrior keeping up the family martial tradition. If I axe the priestess that's probably the end of The Flow as there aren't that many players interested in the priest game. Meanwhile if I axe the warrior that closes a whole story arc I'm hoping to explore over the next year or two.
As for the three active adventurer slots I now have available, I tried the adventurer game a couple of times and it's just not that interesting. There's too much grind and - like the priest game - not enough variability in basic game mechanics. At least with a priest there's wide scope for political intrigue whereas that just doesn't seem to happen with adventurers.
Ultimately the changes on character limits and the rhetoric around them leave me feeling like I'm a problem, like my playing style is somehow "abusive" or "cheating", and that the time I've invested in the parts of the game I enjoy has somehow contributed to the decline in player numbers. For all I know these things may actually be true, in which case forcing me to make a Solomon's judgement over which stories to continue and which to terminate may be a good thing for the game as a whole.
But do I really want to continue playing a game where several years of hard work to achieve mostly modest IC goals can be swept away by a change of gaming policy? That's a question I'm still debating.
And I know from OOC discussions with other players that I'm not alone in questioning my future commitment to a game which has brought me much pleasure, and where I hope I've contributed to the enjoyment of other players.
The only realm where the Bloodstars are even a major player anymore is Astrum, and maybe Morek on a good day. Both of them are on the backswing, while secular realms like Arnor and Luria Nova are on the upswing.
Honestly this whole "The world is ending because I can't play two characters on a continent anymore" attitude is naive and ridiculous, because being able to play two characters on a continent in the first place was an arbitrary ruling that was a reduction from an earlier amount in the first place.
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Point I don't like about 1 char per continent rule to be placed it's that is forcing me to play in a continent I don't like to play if I want to use the entire char limit available to me. For example I don't like Dwilight at all and don't want to play there, and I don't remember that we have 20 continents to choose from choices are very limited, hence players are anticipating the rule change as losing a char.
We have lost a lot with arbitrary decisions in the past, one of them being closing of SEI when DWI was created for example.
What happened with testing islands, why not provide the option at least in one continent to have 2 chars, test the thing a bit for 5-6 months, see the results. There are people who want to have 2 chars in a realm and those are usually the ones that RP very good and I enjoy those that can do that right. In another continent allow 2 chars but 1 per realm compare the results there as well. There is a wide area to be used for testing and allowing people to play how they best enjoy and still contribute to the game while we do the testings or even enrich the game having continents with custom rules.
I will hate if we piss of some old players and we lose them, and Sacha arguments like if this changes don't work out that may be changed few months later will just not hold if the damage is already done and players gone.
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Point I don't like about 1 char per continent rule to be placed it's that is forcing me to play in a continent I don't like to play if I want to use the entire char limit available to me. For example I don't like Dwilight at all and don't want to play there, and I don't remember that we have 20 continents to choose from choices are very limited, hence players are anticipating the rule change as losing a char.
We have lost a lot with arbitrary decisions in the past, one of them being closing of SEI when DWI was created for example.
What happened with testing islands, why not provide the option at least in one continent to have 2 chars, test the thing a bit for 5-6 months, see the results. There are people who want to have 2 chars in a realm and those are usually the ones that RP very good and I enjoy those that can do that right. In another continent allow 2 chars but 1 per realm compare the results there as well. There is a wide area to be used for testing and allowing people to play how they best enjoy and still contribute to the game while we do the testings or even enrich the game having continents with custom rules.
I will hate if we piss of some old players and we lose them, and Sacha arguments like if this changes don't work out that may be changed few months later will just not hold if the damage is already done and players gone.
If you let one continent have 2 characters, then every continent will ask for 2. And how on earth are you supposed to pick which continent should have two? If this rule is going to be applied, it should be applied to every continent without an exception.
If you don't want to play on Dwilight, then don't play there. Sure you will lose a character but you still have 3 or 4 EC, BT, SI, and Colonies. You can choose to play on any of those islands instead. People who wish to have 2 chars in the same realm are people who usually need a filler to maintain their realm or maintain their power. Look at Sirion. Once this rule applies to EC, that realm is going to lose 10 characters. That is the problem it will solve. No more puppets or fillers holding positions. More opportunities for new players or characters of other families who didn't play before.
You are losing things to arbitrary decisions because those decisions which made you gain the things you have now were arbitrary as well. If old players leave because of this then we have to respect their choices and hope their shoes can be filled by others. Everyone will eventually leave. The game is dying. We can't have BM forever. But this decision will hopefully make the game more entertaining for those who are willing to endure the change and stay until the end of this game.
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You didn't respond properly to my arguments, you assume that I hold positions and that I will lose them which is not right. If you have played long enough you would know that game it's not about that. If you would wish there is no realm in any of the continents that you can't achieve being in leading council positions in less then 3 months due to the fact that you will be more active/responsive ect, so I don't agree that it will be much difference for new players.
Limitations will not help but hinder a game by rule.
We surely differ in opinion, for example we can continue to argue will the game lose or win if Sirion is trimmed by 20% of their chars, in my opinion it will be a loss although I'm fighting them at the moment.
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You didn't respond properly to my arguments, you assume that I hold positions and that I will lose them which is not right. If you have played long enough you would know that game it's not about that. If you would wish there is no realm in any of the continents that you can't achieve being in leading council positions in less then 3 months due to the fact that you will be more active/responsive ect, so I don't agree that it will be much difference for new players.
In many realms power concentrates because there aren't enough players willing to take on the additional responsibilites that go with a government office, being a marshal, or just generally being involved in the realm's politics. The number of unoccupied Lordships is rising despite the work involved there being minimal and there being a clear IG reward, whilst finding vice-marshals and marshals is hard work even on SI.
These issues will not be solved by this change - if anything they'll be exacerbated as the more active players spread their efforts ever thinner. Even those of us who like to dabble in politics only have so much time and energy to put into this, so for example I currently play in four realms with six characters (including SI) and I have time to be engaged in the politics of two of these, and the military planning of two (with one overlapping).
If I move two of my characters to fresh realms I very much doubt that I'll have time to involve either of them deeply in either aspect of the game as I've already one where I can't find the time to do that, so really they'll just be drones for whoever is performing those roles. They'll be silent like a good 80% of the characters in the game unless they need gold to recruit.
To be honest this whole reform seems more like an exercise in rearranging the chairs on the Titanic whilst ignoring the iceberg ahead. Initial player retention requires a quick hit of fun (which for small realms can be very tough) whilst longer term engagement needs a good mix of realm culture and productive busy work.
Want to keep players? Put some more excitement and non-battle options in the core game mechanics, overhaul the priest and adventurer games so there's less grind, give knights a reason to value their estates and families reasons to acquire gold and prestige, introduce grand hunts and other dangerous peacetime pursuits, let realms pay the ransoms on their captured knights, allow knights to exchange gold and supplies in the field, give each realm a treasury the Banker and Ruler jointly control, expand infils and diplomats into their own subgames of espionage and counter-espionage, also let infils perform ambushes where they can select which enemies they fight, rework the food system so it actually makes sense, let traders purchase from enemies on a black market. Personally I'd also make TOs harder and introduce siege mechanics and engineers so borders shift slower but have a more meaningful effect when they do.
I'd also let every class - Adventurers and Priests included - command troops, use scouts, train in all skills and take part in tournaments. Give everyone a regenerating timepool but only move troops on the existing turn boundaries and nerf regeneration for the cost of command above say 5 soldiers (diminishing based on captain level and leadership), so for people with high activity there's always something to do when they log in but armies still move the way they currently do.
It also wouldn't hurt to increase support for the RP side of the game. Make storing RPs and messages in the wiki a one-click process, and integrate wiki data into region and character pages. BM has a deep IG history of which very little is easily accessed by new players.
I know Dev time is at a premium and even one of these changes would require a fair bit of work. But given the choice between telling players to change how they play existing characters or leave, and changing how people play by giving them new things to do, the latter strikes me as a much better option for the longterm future of BM.
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Want to keep players? Put some more excitement and non-battle options in the core game mechanics, overhaul the priest and adventurer games so there's less grind, give knights a reason to value their estates and families reasons to acquire gold and prestige, introduce grand hunts and other dangerous peacetime pursuits, let realms pay the ransoms on their captured knights, allow knights to exchange gold and supplies in the field, give each realm a treasury the Banker and Ruler jointly control, expand infils and diplomats into their own subgames of espionage and counter-espionage, also let infils perform ambushes where they can select which enemies they fight, rework the food system so it actually makes sense, let traders purchase from enemies on a black market. Personally I'd also make TOs harder and introduce siege mechanics and engineers so borders shift slower but have a more meaningful effect when they do.
I'd also let every class - Adventurers and Priests included - command troops, use scouts, train in all skills and take part in tournaments. Give everyone a regenerating timepool but only move troops on the existing turn boundaries and nerf regeneration for the cost of command above say 5 soldiers (diminishing based on captain level and leadership), so for people with high activity there's always something to do when they log in but armies still move the way they currently do.
It also wouldn't hurt to increase support for the RP side of the game. Make storing RPs and messages in the wiki a one-click process, and integrate wiki data into region and character pages. BM has a deep IG history of which very little is easily accessed by new players.
Oh, so that's all. Just put in 3-5 years' worth of work, and get it done within the next couple of months, oh, and don't change any of the things that you, personally, actually care about having around.
Yeah, sorry; nearly none of that is going to happen. Like, ever. Even when we had more devs, and our devs had more time, that kind of a program of changes would have been a lot more than just "a fair bit of work." Oh, and I flat guarantee you that even if we took every single suggestion in there and implemented it, at least a quarter of the things we did, you would complain about because they wouldn't be what you had imagined, or, worse, they would actually replace or prevent you from doing things that you care about right now.
Even with an unlimited amount of dev time, there is no way that we will ever satisfy everyone. Right now, we have a very, very small amount of dev time available, and we still need to do something to make sure that the people who are playing BattleMaster are having at least a halfway decent experience.
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So here we go again. You want to play 'your game' when others want to play their games. If you want to change something you will have to learn some programming and join the dev team so you understand what volunteering is like.
Just simply demanding won't do anything. People just don't seem to understand how much work is being put into this game by some of our most dedicated people's spare time. Instead of complaining about everything why don't you appreciate the changes?
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feyeleanor: those are some great ideas. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them will require to much coding work to even consider. I wish we could, but we can't. We have to work with what we have, and the minimal time available to do new things.
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Instead of complaining about everything why don't you appreciate the changes?
Because we don't like them.
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No, you assume you won't like them. A noteworthy distinction I believe.
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So here we go again. You want to play 'your game' when others want to play their games. If you want to change something you will have to learn some programming and join the dev team so you understand what volunteering is like.
Just simply demanding won't do anything. People just don't seem to understand how much work is being put into this game by some of our most dedicated people's spare time. Instead of complaining about everything why don't you appreciate the changes?
Er, I happen to know some programming. Though my skills are beginner at best, as my work revolves around supporting instead of development. But what programming languages do the game utilize? :o
I do share same feeling with feyeleanor on some parts.
Should you want more players willing to take on the additional responsibilities, there are a few obvious examples around. There are many vacant region lordships, and there are still some players who prefer to become knights rather than region lords. The amount of regions are more than the amount of characters. Maybe make an earthquake event and cause one region to go down under, like Atlantis. Maybe we can do a quick survey in game why they do not want to be region lord.
On participations and the active players spread their efforts ever thinner. I agree mostly with feyeleanor. I am active player(Does not take a quick check to see my characters are Rulers, Banker, General, Marshal, Vice Marshal, Judge, Region Lord and Duke) and I used to contribute RolePlays(RP) frequently in the past, though there is less RP from my characters nowadays. Battlemaster game in its very first page does say it is about 15 minutes play for the game. But the higher positions you rise through the ranks, the more times you need to play. Your characters need reply to other players letters, involve in your realm affairs and if your characters known other realm contacts, they also need to keep in touch. An active player like myself, probably devote quite sometime to the game as so many other players as well. We may not involve on one island so much, but we do participate on another island. So to ask the second character to migrate from current island to another island, most active players probably won't do it. We may even consider to focus our efforts on our what-do-we-call the best character or a primary character that we love to play with.
I have been thinking since the new proposed game change is posted to the login page. Why not make Adventurer and Priests not counted as second character? Since we already consider Adventurer as not counted in this new change. But do not give them ability to command troops or use scouts at all.
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Er, I happen to know some programming. Though my skills are beginner at best, as my work revolves around supporting instead of development. But what programming languages do the game utilize? :o
The game is written in PHP, using the Doctrine ORM framework to interact with its MySQL database (at least, where it's been updated to do so).
If you would like to join the dev team and help out, you would be more than welcome. However, bear in mind that that wouldn't be a blank check to implement whatever you want; you'd have to make sure that your code was accepted by...well, these days, basically me. That said, a lot of the things feyeleanor suggested were good ideas, just lacking in dev time to implement them. So if you were willing to put in that time, there would be no mandate that you participate in handling the major changes that have been announced and those that will be announced shortly. You could write code for new features, so long as you were also willing to help keep those features bug-free.
But the changes are going ahead now, whatever happens.
Well, I mean, unless we get another 300 active, permanent players within the next few days. But that doesn't strike me as terribly likely.
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Anaris I do assume that all changes have been thought over, also in a grand scheme of things? Unless the 2 to 1 char brings in enough fresh blood on the continents, it should be combined with nerfs on the militia for instance. Although I'm shooting my own foot by saying this, sieging cities is nearly impossible. Oligarch is so well protected that you'd currently need at least half the continent teaming up to siege it pretty much. Granted, my char doesn't mind, but overall it's a bit strange that not even Sirion/Caligus can siege Oligarch. Taking into account that Sirion will lose 10 nobles or so with the char limit, although that's their issue. With Sirion in more trouble, Oligarch will be virtually untouchable, just to name an example.
At this point the rulers are already pushing for smaller realms to begin with, making them unbeatable however seems to be a bit much if you ask me XD
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Just a quibble with the oligarch thing: sirion only brought half their nobles, and do did Caligus. If they had both brought all their nobles leading full units, they had a good chance of breaking the city.
Having said that, I do agree that militia right now is too powerful.
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Sirion also has courtiers and priests which can't even bring an effective unit to battle and prob a few inactive chars as well. What they brought is pretty much all they can bring from the looks of it. In addition to this, this wasn't the limit for Oligarch either. The only reason I didn't recruit more militia was because we already outnumbered them and had lvl 5 walls.
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Just a quibble with the oligarch thing: sirion only brought half their nobles, and do did Caligus. If they had both brought all their nobles leading full units, they had a good chance of breaking the city.
Having said that, I do agree that militia right now is too powerful.
Especially if they were properly outfitted with the correct number of siege engines. All you have to do is destroy the lvl 5 walls, and you should be able to destroy the lvl 4 walls in the next assault, before lvl 5 can be built.
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Sirion also has courtiers and priests which can't even bring an effective unit to battle and prob a few inactive chars as well. What they brought is pretty much all they can bring from the looks of it. In addition to this, this wasn't the limit for Oligarch either. The only reason I didn't recruit more militia was because we already outnumbered them and had lvl 5 walls.
I have to agree with this. The main problem is not everyone is a warrior and we are starting to see more inactive people. So noble count is not a good indicator of your realm's strength anymore.
Even for an active realm you can only expect 80% at most to show up. Usually it is 60% at best. Gold is more abundant than years ago, militia is stronger than before but we now have A LOT less people to actually do the attacking.
Either militia has to be weakened to compensate the lower noble count or the whole siege mechanic must be changed. Instead of having one huge battle, it will have to be broken down into multiple smaller battles. Maybe each battle only lasting 5 rounds instead of 25 rounds. So many siege battles will end in draws but with some changes preventing the defender from reinforcing militia after a recent battle, it will change how siege battles are carried out.
Or you will have to change how the repairing fortification actually works. Instead of doing it by % you can do it by blocks. Let's say you need 500 blocks for lv5. After a battle, you lose 30 blocks. It will require you to rebuild those 30 blocks to regain lv5 wall bonus. Until then you will only get lv4 bonus.
Something needs to be done about militia and siege or else you will never see a siege battle anymore. With starvation hardly happening, you will see realms staying at 1 city region to hold out against enemies indefinitely unless you are a fresh new realm with your ruler not having any gold to do anything which in these days is a rare kind due to the abundance of gold.
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I have to agree with this. The main problem is not everyone is a warrior and we are starting to see more inactive people. So noble count is not a good indicator of your realm's strength anymore.
Even for an active realm you can only expect 80% at most to show up. Usually it is 60% at best. Gold is more abundant than years ago, militia is stronger than before but we now have A LOT less people to actually do the attacking.
Either militia has to be weakened to compensate the lower noble count or the whole siege mechanic must be changed. Instead of having one huge battle, it will have to be broken down into multiple smaller battles. Maybe each battle only lasting 5 rounds instead of 25 rounds. So many siege battles will end in draws but with some changes preventing the defender from reinforcing militia after a recent battle, it will change how siege battles are carried out.
Or you will have to change how the repairing fortification actually works. Instead of doing it by % you can do it by blocks. Let's say you need 500 blocks for lv5. After a battle, you lose 30 blocks. It will require you to rebuild those 30 blocks to regain lv5 wall bonus. Until then you will only get lv4 bonus.
Something needs to be done about militia and siege or else you will never see a siege battle anymore. With starvation hardly happening, you will see realms staying at 1 city region to hold out against enemies indefinitely unless you are a fresh new realm with your ruler not having any gold to do anything which in these days is a rare kind due to the abundance of gold.
The issue is you aren't bringing siege engines. I haven't seen anyone in Sirion mentioning anything about bringing them.
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They had something like 50 in that last big battle. Not quite enough, but not none, that's for sure.
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They had something like 50 in that last big battle. Not quite enough, but not none, that's for sure.
50 isn't really anything. Even with 25 nobles in an attack, you should be able to field well over 100 siege engines.
Bring 1 siege engine per 10-15 troops. Per 10 if possible. With 50-60 man units you're talking about 4 or 5 siege engines per noble.
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50 isn't really anything. Even with 25 nobles in an attack, you should be able to field well over 100 siege engines.
Bring 1 siege engine per 10-15 troops. Per 10 if possible. With 50-60 man units you're talking about 4 or 5 siege engines per noble.
Never in my time in BM have I seen people bring 100 siege engines in a single battle from a single realm.
SEs don't really help you win against 42k(30k militia) CS of defenders though. Sure you will mitigate the wall advantage a bit but then what? You don't see realms being able to field 42k CS anymore. At best Sirion can field 25k CS but they can only bring 70% of that even with a 2 turn move. So at the end, Oligarch is literally unbreakable because Sirion can't make people bring more than 50 SEs and more men - they are maxed out already.
It is really easy to say 'oh why didn't they bring more SEs? 100 SEs would have broken those walls!'. Typically from people who have never led armies seriously against walled opponents I must say. If you've led a realm in the recent past, you will know how hard it is to siege a city these days. Even if you win you get screwed by peasants afterward.
Also, SEs take forever to be created... If you take 2 months to get ready, your enemies will probably be ready to repel you more.
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Never in my time in BM have I seen people bring 100 siege engines in a single battle from a single realm.
I have. :) It makes walls kinda ineffective.
SEs don't really help you win against 42k(30k militia) CS of defenders though. Sure you will mitigate the wall advantage a bit but then what? You don't see realms being able to field 42k CS anymore. At best Sirion can field 25k CS but they can only bring 70% of that even with a 2 turn move. So at the end, Oligarch is literally unbreakable because Sirion can't make people bring more than 50 SEs and more men - they are maxed out already.
Yes, SEs *really* do help. A lot. But you still need to bring the troops, and the right kind of troops. Sirion has way too many archers to siege a city. That's why realms that got really serious about sacking cities bring almost exclusively infantry. Archers suck at besieging cities. If you want to take the walls, you *have* to have infantry.
Also, SEs take forever to be created... If you take 2 months to get ready, your enemies will probably be ready to repel you more.
Sirion has what, 7 cities? That's seven places to build SEs. And they have had more than enough time to have built lots of workshops. And lots and lots of gold. I doubt any of their cities have even been attacked in years, if ever. At 7 cities, 2 SE per day each, 14 siege engines total. Seven days for 98 engines. More than enough time to build 100 for a siege.
But yes, besieging cities these days sucks. No argument from me there. 30kCS militia? That's just sick.
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I think the main problem for sieging is you can't force people to change their unit type.
Sure you can ask the whole realm to 'get more infantry!' but if people don't give a damn or they have been with their units for so long their captains have over +10 bonuses, who want to switch over anyway? You really can't do much about unit compositions. Have to work with what you have. There is of course a dirty way to force people to recruit a certain type of unit like getting rid of all archer RCs and etc but it is just a dumb idea which costs a lot.
Sirion has 5 cities. 2 SEs every day will get you 10 a day so to get 100 you will have to wait 10 days. Do you still have to travel to other cities to pick them up or can you pick them up in your own capital? Also, this isn't just about Sirion. How do you expect a single city realm to besiege a city with lv5 wall? You will have to sit in your city for 50 days. Or bring 5 single city states if you want to sack a city in 5 days. I don't know how many we will gain/lose from the limit change per continent but I doubt we will get enough to sack a city like even 2 years ago. Nowadays it is just flat out 'don't you dare attack a city'. Even if you win, you get tossed out by peasants.
I think maybe instead of making people pick up multiple SEs, why not just make people pick up 1 SE per person. So you don't have to make a few people to carry 10 each? Instead maybe people should be only able to pick up 1 per person but more you gather for a battle, the more synergy you get out of?
Anyway, the siege problem is not just one or two things causing it. It is a complex problem affected by multiple changes over the years.
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I think the main problem for sieging is you can't force people to change their unit type.
Sure you can ask the whole realm to 'get more infantry!' but if people don't give a damn or they have been with their units for so long their captains have over +10 bonuses, who want to switch over anyway? You really can't do much about unit compositions. Have to work with what you have. There is of course a dirty way to force people to recruit a certain type of unit like getting rid of all archer RCs and etc but it is just a dumb idea which costs a lot.
Sirion has 5 cities. 2 SEs every day will get you 10 a day so to get 100 you will have to wait 10 days. Do you still have to travel to other cities to pick them up or can you pick them up in your own capital? Also, this isn't just about Sirion. How do you expect a single city realm to besiege a city with lv5 wall? You will have to sit in your city for 50 days. Or bring 5 single city states if you want to sack a city in 5 days. I don't know how many we will gain/lose from the limit change per continent but I doubt we will get enough to sack a city like even 2 years ago. Nowadays it is just flat out 'don't you dare attack a city'. Even if you win, you get tossed out by peasants.
I think maybe instead of making people pick up multiple SEs, why not just make people pick up 1 SE per person. So you don't have to make a few people to carry 10 each? Instead maybe people should be only able to pick up 1 per person but more you gather for a battle, the more synergy you get out of?
Anyway, the siege problem is not just one or two things causing it. It is a complex problem affected by multiple changes over the years.
Oligarch is honestly a special case though. Most cities don't have that much CS. I have been in multiple battles where the attacker brought over 100 siege engines. I was a military attacking leader in one or two of them.
You really do need to bring close to that 1SE per 10 men to fully neutralize the lvl 5 walls.
Finally, on the topic of unit type that really only means one thing. Sirion's nobles don't actually care enough about defeating Oligarch. If they did, then people would all drop their archer and cavalry units for infantry.
If they choose not to do so, then the leaders of Sirion haven't done a good enough job of convincing them of the need. If they can't do that, then the attacks should fail regardless. The whole concept of the "they don't give a damn" is your root problem.
And again, Oligarch is a special case. It's strong enough to hold you off, which the Duke apparently planned for. He won. That's how it works sometimes.
I agree something should be done with tweaking some balance, but there are so many things you could do to improve your advantage, it would make sense to start there first.
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You won't get any argument from me that sieges are hard, especially now. I get it. But even so, Sirion could have done better.
Don't forget that strongholds can make SEs, too.
I opened a thread somewhere about militia and sieges. There were some decent ideas about it there.
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You won't get any argument from me that sieges are hard, especially now. I get it. But even so, Sirion could have done better.
Don't forget that strongholds can make SEs, too.
I opened a thread somewhere about militia and sieges. There were some decent ideas about it there.
Pretty sure you can only build demolition tools there. The last time I checked, SE workshop was unavailable.
I am not arguing that Sirion is sucking a lot at the moment. Just that I hope Oligarch stays as a rare case and not a common case in the future. The size of Oligarch does make things easier since even with 30k miltia, the city still generates enough income for everyone. I wouldn't compare a monster like that with other cities but there are 3 more cities that can do that on EC - Perdan, Sirion and Ibladesh. Probably even more on Dwilight since Dwilight cities are richer.
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Dwilight is less comparable though because of the system of circle townslands that start to allow better siege mechanics. While super cities exist, it's much easier to contain people in them.
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feyeleanor: those are some great ideas. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them will require to much coding work to even consider. I wish we could, but we can't. We have to work with what we have, and the minimal time available to do new things.
I do appreciate that. If I had spare time myself I'd help with Dev, but I don't. Well, not without giving up playing :o
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Dante you do know btw that both Lapallanch and myself play in Oligarch right ;-)
It's possible that Oligarch is a special case, I don't know. What I do know is that as long as cities can't be starved and you can recruit so much militia while still making gold, the wars get rather rediculous. Agreed, Sirion is sucking a lot atm, no argument there. Also the 30k militia is/was not the limit of Oligarch, I can go farther than that.
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I am pretty sure Garas can put at least 10k more. That makes it 40k. With 30k the city requires half of its income to maintain it. So from looking at this you can imagine how much more CS Oligarch can support. At most, the city can support 60k militia with 10~15k mobile.
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So when is the official start date for the character limits? If the implementation date hasn't been explicitly and unequivocally specified before, then this should be done as soon as possible to be fair to the players.
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There is still one fix that needs to happen before we can do anything. Tom needs to fix an admin interface before we can set the date. Once he does that, we will make an announcement. We do not want to delay any more than necessary, but we can't set a schedule until the admin interface is fixed.
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There is still one fix that needs to happen before we can do anything. Tom needs to fix an admin interface before we can set the date. Once he does that, we will make an announcement. We do not want to delay any more than necessary, but we can't set a schedule until the admin interface is fixed.
Any estimate on when Tom will fix the admin interface?
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I wish there was.
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I wish there was.
Aww.... Well it looks like Tom is back from his vacation at least. Maybe he will take a look.
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Can we at least have a period of advance warning (i.e. a fixed date) before the change occurs? A week or two in which to disentangle from ongoing commitments would make this less traumatic for everyone.
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Can we at least have a period of advance warning (i.e. a fixed date) before the change occurs? A week or two in which to disentangle from ongoing commitments would make this less traumatic for everyone.
Pretty sure something as major as this will get at least a warning a week advance. People will need time to think on which character they want to move and to where.
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There will be at least a week of advance warning. At this point, the only thing in question is when Tom will actually fix the admin site so that we can set our final dates.
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There will be at least a week of advance warning. At this point, the only thing in question is when Tom will actually fix the admin site so that we can set our final dates.
Keep bugging him Tim :D
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The game is written in PHP, using the Doctrine ORM framework to interact with its MySQL database (at least, where it's been updated to do so).
If you would like to join the dev team and help out, you would be more than welcome. However, bear in mind that that wouldn't be a blank check to implement whatever you want; you'd have to make sure that your code was accepted by...well, these days, basically me. That said, a lot of the things feyeleanor suggested were good ideas, just lacking in dev time to implement them. So if you were willing to put in that time, there would be no mandate that you participate in handling the major changes that have been announced and those that will be announced shortly. You could write code for new features, so long as you were also willing to help keep those features bug-free.
But the changes are going ahead now, whatever happens.
Well, I mean, unless we get another 300 active, permanent players within the next few days. But that doesn't strike me as terribly likely.
Hmmmm, SQL is my forte right now as I keep using it in my daily work tasks. PHP, I almost forgot it all. Not sure I will have much time to do it, but I can try help out a bit every now and then. Now where do I sign up? Is there any requirement I need to aware of beside all these above? :)
On the changes going ahead, yes I understand. As long as we got advance warning to migrate, pause or delete our secondary character, that is all fine with me.
On getting new players. I do tried promoting this game on Facebook to my friends, but not many people interested. Some say no graphic, too much letters to read and some like to click, click. Well, you get what the new generation like to do :P
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This is a great change. One character per continent allows reputation and your actions to be crucial. Dwilight has long been my favorite continent because the conflict between characters and families that much more permanent. And over the years of dealing with certain names it helps to create some awesome diplomatic dynamics, especially when after long years as enemies the fates have changed and you find yourself in a realm having to work with those same people.
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I don't think it's meaningful to think much in terms of families when there's only one character per island, except perhaps for those families who habitually acquire power. The sense of a family inheritance or of a younger generation serving in the ranks whilst the older wields political power requires either a lot of RP or more than one character.
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I don't think it's meaningful to think much in terms of families when there's only one character per island, except perhaps for those families who habitually acquire power. The sense of a family inheritance or of a younger generation serving in the ranks whilst the older wields political power requires either a lot of RP or more than one character.
You've never seen a Kabrinsky at work then. Even now that name causes those in power to shudder in fear on Dwilight.
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You've never seen a Kabrinsky at work then. Even now that name causes those in power to shudder in fear on Dwilight.
Not really. Not anymore. Kabrinski doesn't have the same influence they once had. They were one of the most influential families in the island's history but who is afraid of Kabrinski these days?
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Especially after the massive fail on fei
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I meant IC, not OOC. Thus the mentioning of rulers and not "players".
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Not really. Not anymore. Kabrinski doesn't have the same influence they once had. They were one of the most influential families in the island's history but who is afraid of Kabrinski these days?
Good. It makes my job easier when I am underestimated.
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Yes, there are some family names that matter, even in the single character island. People learn families, and families gain history and reputation. Even cross-island history matters. Just doing take it to an extreme.
Kabrinski is a big name, even if it doesn't make people shiver in fear.
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Family name matters if only for familiarity reasons. If you're considering two candidates, and you only recognize one name, the familiar one will tend to win. Also, there are connections you can draw upon for support. I did this plenty of times when I was playing as the Silverfires. I highly doubt an RP'ed marriage into the Kabrinski family would have ever occurred otherwise as just one example. Or my quick recognition to regain influence with a new character in Luria. Although, that's much more regional family ties.