- Region's fortifications are not possible to rebuild because the swarms keep coming, and you cannot rebuild within two turns of an attack.These are two of the most annoying parts about the monsters. With the ferry routes working as they do, having a death-stack of 50k CS of monsters sail up out of nowhere and attack is quite a worrying idea.
- Monsters crossing on ferries. Seems a bit strange that mindless evil can just take the ferry man across the water, and even more so that there is seemingly no defensive bonus trying to defend that way. IRL islands are often considered natural fortresses, but unless you use ships, it seems as if there is no difference. On an RP continent, it seems strange that these beasts can use ferries and boats, as well as our islands and shores not being more defendable.
The main issue with all of this is that it does not allow us to play the game fully as we have to rush from region to region to do ''maintenance'' work more than anything else, against an enemy that has unlimited numbers, and that will keep coming. I decided to ask OOCly in my realm if it was just me who felt this way, and several have uttered that they are feeling the exact same way as I do. It is a shame as I have really enjoyed the game, but I find myself often logging on more out of duty than of wish to play, as there simply is little to do, but log in, check the military orders, and then start walking.I'm sorry. This is not the experience you should have.
There is simply too many monsters that we can do anything about it in my realm, and this is despite having rather many nobles for continent standards, and relatively few regions to defend.The density-rate for the spawn rates is based on island density, not realm density. We wanted island density, not realm density, because once the frontier stabilizes we wanted to avoid realms being isolated away from each other and unable to interact.
- The inability of players to play the game, or do anything but fighting monsters.Unfortunately for D'Hara, it is on Dwilight's frontier. That reads much more unsympathetic that I intend, but I'm simply trying to explain why that is so.
- Players losing interest in the game because of this.Our concern are the players lost from realms too silent, afraid, dead, or obsessed with peace to do anything. Thus, the focus on increasing player density last November/December, with island sinkings and density-based spawning for BT and DWI, in order to increase engagement between more tightly-packed players that provide a more welcoming and interesting experience for new players in not just one realm, but throughout the whole island. There has been a years-long unaddressed player loss that has given many years of the impression that everyone should become a lord, but players have kept the same land area despite losing the nobility to manage it.
- Hordes are too numerous and common.As above, minimal lands have been lost, without a huge increase in Dwilight players, so the spawn rate is still spitting out new monsters to assert pressure on humanity.
- Region's fortifications are not possible to rebuild because the swarms keep coming, and you cannot rebuild within two turns of an attack.You need to stop the swarms before they reach the fortification. This is the same code human realms had when expanding into Dwilight's frontier in the first place. And an element of the gradual pressure upon humanity that would be lost if humans could repair whenever, requiring much much larger hordes to overcome full fortifications instead of gradually wearing down the frontier bit by bit.
- Monsters crossing on ferries. Seems a bit strange that mindless evil can just take the ferry man across the water, and even more so that there is seemingly no defensive bonus trying to defend that way. IRL islands are often considered natural fortresses, but unless you use ships, it seems as if there is no difference. On an RP continent, it seems strange that these beasts can use ferries and boats, as well as our islands and shores not being more defendable.Again, monsters have always crossed ferries for as long as I can remember. And preventing such would make it impossible for monsters to move east except through the northern bridges by Westgard/Arnor. As far as defendable, they are highly-fortified, even if hit by constant monster attacks. If it had not been for those island fortifications from north to south, I imagine the monsters would be further east now than they are.
- There is no end game to it, they will keep coming, and slowly whittle away at our fortifications.Since the spawn rate was announced to be density-based last December, it should lower as either land is lost in BM or additional players found. The spawn rate does not care where the humans live on Dwilight, only that humanity lives a bit less spread out than it is. It should adjust naturally to the human-occupied regions and nobles/players on Dwilight. Effectively, the early Dwilight frontier has returned and will adjust its strength based on humanity.
- It is an evil spiral, as the lack of opportunity leads players to lose interest, effectively punishing those who fight monsters, by not only having them focus on their fighting, but also losing people who wish to actually play the game.Again, this is concerning. But it is also concerning that there are so many players spread out through so many realms with so many regions that many realms will become places obsessed with avoiding war, failing to engage their players, and boring their nobility away into inactivity. And there aren't enough people at any given time to challenge that status quo in each realm, thus driving people from the game. Is there a middle solution?
having a death-stack of 50k CS of monsters sail up out of nowhere and attack is quite a worrying idea.Fortifications and archers up the ying-yang! Stacks of that size have been defeated on walls in the recent past.
Another issue is the fact that a lot of these monster hordes just won't die, instead they're in a limbo of getting destroyed but having a few remaining so they rally and lock the region into combat, then another horde strolls through and repeats the process. In Westgard it is very rare that a region is completely cleared, despite winning. Alas, that is the world of PVEI'm not sure on the monster-hunting mechanics, but that would be my most first attempt. Is monster-hunting not very effective? BM is a 15-year-old game, and with the player loss, there are areas that might need (and have been) adjusted to rebalance it for Today.
Thank you for the replies, and whether everything is working as intended or not, I felt it was time to offer you this piece so that you at least were aware that these mechanics slowly have been driving away some players. We discussed it in the realm, and then agreed that we had to take it up so that at least you were aware that there was a situation. Only that way can we hope to keep the player base alive over a long period of time.Thank you. Please encourage more to join in.
and I understand the reasoning behind the monster invasions, however, it is very self fulfilling prophesy that in fear that things will get boring without them, you are making many players indifferent to playing on the continent.I wish it were just a theoretical prophecy we could forsake, but its something we have seen happen time and again in many continents. And is still happening within some realms. The goal is that with more people in a tighter area, more interaction once again engages players, with more competition for advancement and political skill required with more people. But it would be counter-productive to bore the players in the process...so I remain open to suggestions that achieve both interests.
And I know that the GMs did not intend it as such, but putting the refugee realm on western Dwilight just seems spiteful in hindsight. "We are sinking your island. What's that? You want to keep playing? You can go play meat-shields for some strangers on this other island."
My first impression upon seeing Dwilight island is this is People fight against Environment. (PvE as some players may call it)
To watch the lands grow and ebb is part of the process. Of course those players who open dark portals causing more problems to humans, if many realms do not like those players, they can simply ban them or put bounty on their heads for their troublemaking activities.
Frontier realms should have some frontier feeling to it. Maybe frontier realms can seek other realms help; for you guard the front against monsters and undead attack on their behalf. In this way, both frontier realms and non-frontier realms can benefit from alliance, just saying one of the many ways which can benefit us all. It is up to our characters to solve the problems. If you think rogue problem is bad and your realm need help, ask other realms. Call it mutual benefits ;)
As for the help you speak of, the issue is that most realms are pressured, and the amount of nobles in the realms are not that grand, with that add the distance some of them would have to travel, they would come, fight a few battles, have to retreat, and it would have made no real difference due to the continuous swarms.
This is not the right strategy to increase player density. In fact this may be the exact opposite of the right strategy. D'Haran nobles are not going to join other realms if they lose their estates. They are either going to emigrate or just quit the game. If you want to encourage the players to bunch up, have the Monsters attack the realms with low player density. They actually have ground to give.
And I know that the GMs did not intend it as such, but putting the refugee realm on western Dwilight just seems spiteful in hindsight. "We are sinking your island. What's that? You want to keep playing? You can go play meat-shields for some strangers on this other island."
This may not be true of any other realm on Dwilight, but not a single player in Westgard gets to complain that the monsters are too hard, when we explicitly stated that it would be a very hard fight just to survive there.The monsters aren't the hard part, its the +12 hour travel times between regions in the spring while monsters cross in one turn. But we manage.
The monsters aren't the hard part, its the +12 hour travel times between regions in the spring while monsters cross in one turn. But we manage.
Ah...that is also a bug, actually.Is it our travel times or their travel times that is the bug? I thought regular travel was effected by the region production levels, thus the "very bad, bad" road signs.
I will see if I can pin it down today. That one's irritated me before.
Aquitain (Westgard)
extremely bad road, 136 miles, ca. 16 hours
Gelene Outskirts (Westgard)
bad road, 172 miles, ca. 13 hours
Is it our travel times or their travel times that is the bug? I thought regular travel was effected by the region production levels, thus the "very bad, bad" road signs.
This is not the right strategy to increase player density. In fact this may be the exact opposite of the right strategy. D'Haran nobles are not going to join other realms if they lose their estates. They are either going to emigrate or just quit the game. If you want to encourage the players to bunch up, have the Monsters attack the realms with low player density. They actually have ground to give.
The question, or issue rather, is not whether it is meant to have a frontier feel to it, I do think there is a point in that, but the issue is that I think it is driving away players by not giving them a chance to otherwise play the game. If a mechanic is driving away a player base, then surely it should be reconsidered. I know that I have felt less inclined to play due to the ferocity and unrelenting nature of it all, and it seems from talks in OOC that a few other players have felt the same, which I am sure was not the intention.Thank you for your explanation. You are right. This is likely to drive away players. And we trying to keep players :(
As for the help you speak of, the issue is that most realms are pressured, and the amount of nobles in the realms are not that grand, with that add the distance some of them would have to travel, they would come, fight a few battles, have to retreat, and it would have made no real difference due to the continuous swarms.
The trouble is, as things stand, the monsters are in the west, and the realms you just named are standing directly in almost every past from west to east.
I don't presume to think I know the answer, however, I will be willing to spar some theoretic ideas. Could one be to simply sink the Western Isle of Dwilight?I do not think so.
The realms with the highest player densities on Dwilight are Westgard, Madina, and D'Hara, which are exactly the realms which are getting swarmed with Monsters because "player density is too low". The human realms are giving ground very slowly precisely because they are the realms who can least afford to give up ground.That's like saying the security company is not working because there are no burglers around since hiring the security company. It's not a useful comparison because you are comparing the current densities and using that as reason why the policy implemented before the current densities is not working as if they always had those high densities and did not in fact have lower densities. Madina was one of the worst, lowest densities before these changes. D'Hara has always been slightly higher than other realms on Dwilight ebcaues of less regions/more gold city-island phenomena. Westgard didn't even exist. You didn't mention Astrum, but its density was probably only a touch better than Madina. Between island sinking folks interested in playing on the frontier emigrations, and monsters chipping away on regions, of course they now have higher density. They are where the action is! And as I wrote above, the density is measured in island-wide terms, not realm terms. Because otherwise you would have realms isolated from each other and unable to interact. Rather, what is desired is for humanity's edge to slowly crumble, not to isolate realms away from each other surrounded by long marches through rogue monster territory.
This is not the right strategy to increase player density. In fact this may be the exact opposite of the right strategy. D'Haran nobles are not going to join other realms if they lose their estates. They are either going to emigrate or just quit the game. If you want to encourage the players to bunch up, have the Monsters attack the realms with low player density. They actually have ground to give.And this is what is frustrating that players prefer to keep their IC titles and estates than try to improve the game so new players don't have so many boring realms to choose from. Again, attacking by realm density will result in realms being isolated from each other. What you're basically asking is that realms with lower density are killed so that frontier realms can survive long enough to become isolated away from humanity and besieged by monsters on both sides.
And I know that the GMs did not intend it as such, but putting the refugee realm on western Dwilight just seems spiteful in hindsight. "We are sinking your island. What's that? You want to keep playing? You can go play meat-shields for some strangers on this other island."No. There was not a single realm. There was a specifically advertised frontier realm and three EC realms to provide blank slate realms, in addition to whatever shenanigans could be had in a pre-existing realm with a large group of folks. They were destination choices.
The addition of portal stones is quite interesting though.Portal stones were not added, they've always been aware. I increased the overall advy game item generation to improve the sage/wizard experience from a time when having the item you needed was rare for an older, experienced advy. This inadvertently increased portal stone generation. Also, GMs had a bit of free time to write roleplays for the portal events. I think we intend to leave it as a Summon Unexpected Event. Some of the portals on Dwilight cleared monsters for frontier realms.
Maybe their spawn rate could be similar to the rogues spawn rate in Dwilight, based on Player density on the continent.
Realms could destroy them selves with the effects of the portal stones or destroy realms using them.
This way the players get to do the mopping up.
In addition to their initial effects, portals could serve as beacons, drawing many rogues towards it.
This could be used to save your realm as well as destroy it or or other realms.
Another idea could be to involve the Zuma into this, play them based on player density, or perhaps even the amount of inter realm conflicts.This might be doable in some form. But I do not think the Zuma have ever destroyed a realm.
If there isn't enough war the Zuma come to destroy some realms.
These realms get a chance in saving them selves by defending and using portal stones, or worshipping the Zuma and go to war with their neighbours.
Rogues spawn rate could also go in waves, still based on player density.Testing island spawn rate does change based upon season.
Another alternative is to adjust food production on player density.Food production is reduced for lordless regions now.
My first impression upon seeing Dwilight island is this is People fight against Environment. (PvE as some players may call it)Indeed. Dwilight is Frontier. Beluaterra are Invasions. Colonies are Slow. War is War. EC is Normal.
Have Undead hordes rise up from the sea and attack Dwilight's east coast.This might be doable in some form.
Will the monsters also face penalties upon landing against a stationary enemy?I would imagine the landing penalties are the same regardless of who is landing upon teh shore.
In either case, perhaps a some sort of cap on the spawning to keep things within reason?Rather, travel destination changes so they do not form one 94k CS stack, but multiple smaller stacks throughout multiple regions wandering in diverse directions. Some improvements have already been made since the 94k CS stack.
4) A goal.I have some ideas to confer with Anaris about.
Tom, at this point you're being dense, so I hope you'll forgive me if I say YOU MISSED THE ENTIRE POINT OF WHAT HE WAS SAYING.
The past density doesn't matter, because the past density had zero effect on the current monster code, which targets low noble density areas more. This code went in while the realms in question were at their current density. So your rant here is meaningless. Especially the part regarding Westgard.
Besides that, the reason that these realms in question are constantly under attack isn't some policy failure, but the fact that said realms are holding all the crossing points to the east because currently monsters can't use sea zones.
I want some advice from all of you. I play in D'Hara in Dwilight. Here is my daily routine:
1. Login to the game and select playing my character, Jason Elegant.
2. See whether he is wounded or ready (Thanks for the NON -STOP heavy rain of monsters, undead, Daimons and cyborgs, witches, chimera, hydra, medusa etc. SINCE I remain WOUNDED all the time, I can't see what hit me, so I wrote all possible names that came to my mind.)
3. If the char is ready, I follow the orders to recruit, refit and engage those nightmares again.
4. LOGOUT.
5. Repeat from step 1, daily (every turn).
I am loosing interest. Please guide me and help me re-gain my interest. I shall be much grateful.
You have nonstop combat, and you're complaining?
Some people just cannot be pleased I guess.
I must say that there was a tendency for this post to gradually derail a little bit as the tone became more hostile player and admin/dev between, and now some player to player which is not the intention for this thread to begin with. It was to raise awareness amongst the devs how many nobles in one realm felt, apparently alongside what many others felt in different realms.
I would like to point out that the choice should not necessarily be that it is the players' own fault if they are not enjoying a game due to mechanics, and regardless it should always be considered when there is complaints, that being said, some point out that Dwilight is in fact the RP continent, as such the logic should not be "Well, it's your fault for being in D'Hara, that's how mechanics work." Elegant came there with refugees from Atamara, and as such RP wise it would make very little sense to just pick up and go somewhere else.
Because the realm is in constant combat against NPCs then we are not allowed to do non-combat roles largely, only those getting food so we can sustain ourselves do not follow the routines across the board, the essence of what happens leaves little room for RP. We did have RP when we marched to take Paisly, but after a while, fighting the monsters left people uninterested in the RP with it, and again when people are saying constant combat, it is not combat with a purpose either, we are not fighting a war against another realm for this or that cause, we are simply fighting because the monsters are coming at us in waves. If you have not tried the constant fighting against NPCs I don't really think you understand how little it leaves you to do otherwise.
The game is an RPG largely, and we cannot really do RP, nor can we actually engage with other realms as we have nothing to offer them in terms of war or anything else because we are constantly doing this, that's the whole point of the thread and what Elegant said.
Amusingly enough, you're actually wrong about what this game is. It is largely a strategy game that is welded together via player RP. If this game were just about RP, then we wouldn't even need to bother with an interface and coded mechanics, but rather just a map. What you're talking about is basically Spellmaster, an earlier game by Tom that this game is a strategy spin-off of. War Islands (the game) is the opposite extreme, being strategy completely divorced from RP.
Dwilight, by the way, has always been a constant fight against Monsters and undead, despite what you may believe. Technically Dwilight was never any more RP focused than other continents, but instead focused on making said RP more serious and period appropriate. However, Dwilight's atmosphere influenced the other continents, so it is no longer any more an "RP" continent than East Island.
And by the way, RP-wise, as a refugee, he would head to the most secure realms, aka the North or Swordfell. Or do you not follow the refugee crisis, where refugees skip Turkey, Greece, Macedon, Hungary, and Austria because Germany is more wealthy?
Keep it up though, I can come up with rebuttals all day. Not least of which is the notice every player gets that not all realms are the same, and if they aren't having fun there, should feel free to go elsewhere.
Now you mention the inalienable rights, which is true, and I don't think anyone is stopping anyone from playing as so, however, the issue is that, if you were to play a priest or a courtier you would really be losing your foothold in the realm as it would just slowly lose ground. People can play these parts, but there is very little to do with them currently. So it comes down to if you want to play that way, they would more or less have to leave D'Hara for it.
Again, I would also state that realms are, should and have been different, but simply denouncing it as that is false, as the gravity of the situation has risen so much due to the latest updates that we have not been able to defend our regions, there has always been fighting against monsters in D'Hara, but it was not previously that there would be a horde in our regions per day. Port Raviel has for example fallen due to not being able to rebuild the walls for months at a time. In fact the guy who was lord there eventually just said "f**k it" and gave up.
Actually it is possible to repair the walls under constant siege...make sure the monsters never reach the walls. It'll cost a bit more mobile forces and casulties, but you can prevent them. Then you can repair them. Also this problem should become less so now anyway.
Actually, as cool as it be if the game were that smart, it's not. It can't tell when the last time the fortifications were damaged was, just whether there's been a battle at all within the last couple of days (or maybe turns; I don't recall off the top of my head).
Sorry. :-\
The real point I wanted to ask was, What could he do on Atamara he is no loner able to do on Dwilight?
The players we had trouble mostly sat around doing nothing. So - sit around and do nothing if you want.
What is having lots of monsters to fight doing to suddenly ruin the game for you?
Add a button to the ruler command panel based on if a realm is flagged by a dev as nomad potential (not too big, geography, enough exposure to the west). Clicking the button flags the realm, a dev copy pastes the old migrating realm code that decreases morale hits for long distances, troop cost, adds attack bonuses, but also lowers the region stat soft cap 30%, etc etc to make it balanced. They can recruit from any region and are given a time frame that they have nomad status. After the successful/unsuccessful migration the code reverts to normal. The button is immediately usable but a dev has to look at it and say yes or no so prevention against abuse is already there.
The real point I wanted to ask was, What could he do on Atamara he is no loner able to do on Dwilight?
Lol. Several times, I used to auto-pause due to inactivity after the fall of Northern Alliance. I don't want to do that in Dwilight :D
Why are YOU so excited to inquire about this? (have you asked this twice or thrice maybe? Has my auto-pausing in Atamara offended you in any way?) We are trying to communicate something to game admins and devs. Are you one of them?
Lol. Several times, I used to auto-pause due to inactivity after the fall of Northern Alliance. I don't want to do that in Dwilight :D
Why are YOU so excited to inquire about this? (have you asked this twice or thrice maybe? Has my auto-pausing in Atamara offended you in any way?) We are trying to communicate something to game admins and devs. Are you one of them?
Elegant,
Do not bother with posting here friend, this banter is not worth a response, it goes from discussion to simply belittling of other players.... honestly has to make you question why, but why waste the time
People are limited by what they have to do, rather what they want to do. After a while, such maintenance play will drive away inspiration and creativity of players, who in turn will not RP. We started out fighting the monsters, and RPed alongside it, but it died out as it continued. There is little room for political power struggles as everyone is just busy fighting the wars. There is little room for international politics as we cannot actually have any interaction with other realms except for 1-2 people who gather food for us, so we can't go for alliances really, or go for a war.
Why can't you do those things? The fights are all computer generated. The things you are talking about are all RP.
The fights don't take any of your real-life time. Your character has to sit *somewhere* - why not sit where monsters are?
How are you "busy fighting wars"? The computer is fighting the wars. You just read about it.
Int'l politics? Go be a diplomat or trader. No one forces you to be a front-line knight.
People here keep saying we're just trolling you, but all any of can see are people complaining that they can't do something that quite obviously they CAN do, and it starts to sound more and more like you miss the old ruling clique & game within a game that killed Atamara, and nothing more than that.
Sorry, but that's gone and good riddance.
Perhaps you should entertain the option of abandoning the Isles?
I have considered quitting the game to be honest, doubt I would move because the frontier between the monsters and men would just be moved and someone else would have to deal with it. Granted it might be more spread out with more coastline and less concentrated on the same region day in and day out.
I have considered quitting the game to be honest, doubt I would move because the frontier between the monsters and men would just be moved and someone else would have to deal with it. Granted it might be more spread out with more coastline and less concentrated on the same region day in and day out.
You are the ruler of D'Hara, but I've hardly heard a word from you on the Rulers' channel , and when you do speak, you say very little.
Any player who wants to can take up a different role in the realm, and go travel.
Any player who wants to can simply switch to a different realm.
Any player who wants to can RP about ANYTHING that they want to; it doesn't HAVE TO BE about the monsters.
So I'll ask again - What is it you want to do that you can't? Because I've still haven't seen anything specific that should be blocked.
Yes, monster fighting can be a bit repetitious, and now that it's summer coming, etc, RP will be down - but nothing is blocking you from doing anything.
People lose interest when the Ruler takes the position for the fame points and doesn't bother to work to keep things creative and fun.
You may be right. You may want to pause your character for a few months and see if you have lost interest in the game.
I mean, since all realms are losing nobles as time goes on.
I'm sorry, but who in all hell do you think you are, talking to someone else like you have? What makes you think you can speak to anyone, let alone someone you do not even know like that over a game. I have done plenty for the realm, and the game during my time, and have played for a couple of years now. In time I had never actually properly met people on this game who were directly toxic, but since it is just a game I can say that I am now happier than ever that I am leaving. A civil debate cannot be had it seems, and as such there is little point to stay.
While the concept may be lost on you, then things does change after all, and seemingly people, not only myself, have after a while said we think it is a bit ridiculous the amount, specifically after some changes made by the admins. Now you say the game has always had this and it is true, but not in the extent we have been facing right now, regardless, even if you argue it has always been like that, and the game slowly has been dying, yet you remain unwilling to change it.
It is this exact sort of "It's always been, so let it remain so forever" that actually made me ruler of a realm, because very little happened and a group of people were fed up, so we did what we could to get into power and reform the realm to try and better it, now we are facing an issue that we wanted to raise so that the admins were aware that people feel this way.
People are leaving the game, has been for a while - This could help people not leaving the game - You refuse because YOU like it like that.
I think big point here is, that it starts to feel on D'hara that there is no hope ever never do anything else than fight those monsters. No matter how you put it, at the end, it becomes boring.
I bet some people at Madina is feeling a bit same, never ending hordes just keep coming. Been considering to move to another realm. And i suggest those who doesnt like that do so too. Some people seem to enjoy that hard fight and i did too, but it starts to get "old". You cant interact with them, you basicly cant beat them.
-Jaune
That may just be me who suspects a slow decline then, from what I have seen number wise on Dwilight I think there has been a small decline, but I cannot say for certain. Not drastic whatsoever.
And thanks Gabanus, but I have made my peace with leaving the game. Maybe at some point I will come back, but I just don't really see much of a point right now. I am already only playing 1 noble and 1 advy, and I will retire both I think. I have handed off 9000 gold, and two items to people I have played with. I might not have fun with the game anymore, but giving away the stuff and resigning from my positions may give some fun to others.
Though to be honest, there is a certain allure in creating a whole new faith. However, for now, I will take my leave of the game, and it is not based on the people on here who I do not necessarily agree with. It is just based on I am not having fun with the game anymore. I wish the best for the game for certain, and all the nice people I have met through the game, players and admin alike.
Actually from what I've seen Madina is enjoying the fight plenty.
That's no longer true.
The decline stopped around the time we sunk Atamara and the FEI. We've been holding fairly steady since then.
If Tom can get the activation email issue sorted out, we might even start gaining again.
::) Bit Delusional ::)
We know our fate
Considering Anaris has hold of the stats and you don't... I'm going to trust him more. Sorry that you couldn't be right in your pessimism.
Madina has only been gaining nobles, the place is quite lively actually, even relatively to its size, it has great realm wide interaction about various issues, not just the rogues.
Also, perhaps i am the only one here, but this topic is turning into a D'hara centred discusion between basically two persons.
I think its pointless to go in depth and focus so much on the experience of a few players in one realm.
Statistics are in the system and recorded in other threads. Game has been on the decline... we've closed 2 continents I think that speaks for itself, but if not Gundam please stick your head into your profile, click a character of yours, then go to Information click that, find statistics on that page and then go to player statistics. If you cannot understand a graph that, ill help you, we lose roughly 8-10 players a month also 2 years ago this time we had close to double what we currently have. 8 years ago we had 3-4x, 12 years ago we had 5-6x times as much at least.
I'm sorry, but you're way off base.
First of all, yes, we closed two continents. If you had actually read my previous post, you would have seen that it was saying that after those two continents were closed, the decline leveled off. Thus, every single thing you said here is irrelevant to that.
Second of all, you have to go back at least 3-4 years before you get to double the numbers we have now. And we've never had more than 4 times what we have now, so your "12 years ago" is just total BS.
2008 was the peak, when we had around 2000 players. Before then it was steadily rising. At that time it plateaued, then started a long slow decline.
But let me repeat the most salient point for you: The decline has stopped, or at least slowed down so much as to be imperceptible now.
Whatever anecdotal evidence you have, whatever feeling you have that the game is doomed and there's nothing left but to wait for its inevitable end, it's not borne out by the actual statistics. So look to the log in your own eye before you go calling other people condescending, please.
Date Registered Players Weekly Activity Daily Activity 2014 Jan. 26th (peak count) 880 577 304 2014 March 1st (Beginning of freezing) 825 539 288 April 10th 797 541 293 2014 May 1st 799 533 305 2014 June 16th (WI created) 784 491 277 2014 July 3rd 757 460 248 2014 August 13th 736 445 250 2014 October 21st 683 402 224 2015 March 30th 566 370 184
Soo, how are people doing at Dwi?
I'm starting to be real bored... so bored that pausing is starting to feel very good solution.
It's not that there is nothing to do, but lack of interaction. Everybody is busy to fight with monsters, there is no real progress on that front either. You gain region, then you lose one. You have that handfull of active nobles... which sorry to say is decreasing all the time. There is monsters and undead group which is about double our realm's CS. So we wait them to TO region and to move another region and then we TO region back. We cant challenge that group, either than it happens to send unit or 2 out from the main group. I would much rather fight war with another realm, interact with the enemy... but for now, its login, scout where and what bugs are doing, logout...
I'm not sure what would be right route to go with DWI, but atleast for me, this is utterly boring. I might just move to another realm towards north, please tell me that whole continent isnt like this?
Soo, how are people doing at Dwi?Not doing well. Morek just lost its capital, we down to 2 regions now. The few regions it has, are under constant monsters attack. My character was wounded by monsters in Nimh. It is becoming harder to motivate what few nobles Morek has. Under my character who is General, we helped Arnor to defend its lands against monsters. But we cannot go too far away leaving our own lands untended. Frequent attacks on Nimh and many lands nearby to the point I almost want call it a day for my character in Dwilight. Some of our nobles want fight against Avernus who took our last capital city and duchy, but with our so few nobles numbers, we are feeling hopeless to even fight against human realm and monsters.
I'm starting to be real bored... so bored that pausing is starting to feel very good solution.
It's not that there is nothing to do, but lack of interaction. Everybody is busy to fight with monsters, there is no real progress on that front either. You gain region, then you lose one. You have that handfull of active nobles... which sorry to say is decreasing all the time. There is monsters and undead group which is about double our realm's CS. So we wait them to TO region and to move another region and then we TO region back. We cant challenge that group, either than it happens to send unit or 2 out from the main group. I would much rather fight war with another realm, interact with the enemy... but for now, its login, scout where and what bugs are doing, logout...
I'm not sure what would be right route to go with DWI, but atleast for me, this is utterly boring. I might just move to another realm towards north, please tell me that whole continent isnt like this?
Maybe it is time to abandon Morek and join the only theocracy that matters!I know which theocracy you speaking of... Hmmmm.
Okay, I am frustrated. I just know we cannot relocate capital to our one townsland. So with monsters keep pounding at our small army men, I do not even think positively we can retake back our capital. So there is that, Morek likely be history soon.
Dwilight, monsters spawn rate. How come on east lands monsters spawn rate so high, suppose to be west... and how come control drop so much in east lands when we recruit militia, are we supposedly to let Morek die? Morek is a small realm nowadays, 3 regions, recruit militia not suppose to drop the morale so much! >:(
I am pretty sure I sent out a letter at one point to the General list about the issue, not sure if anyone actually paid attention to it.People seem to not pay attention to BT Invasion messages either. Or Announcements on things like spawn rates. From when the spawn rates were changed to no longer be west/east based:
2) Monster spawn and behavior on testing islands (Dwilight and Beluaterra) will change. Monster/undead travel will no longer be random. They will prefer to attack regions based on several regional characteristics, such as whether or not the region has a lord, occupied and/or vacant estates, fortifications, or militia. When character-per-region density drops below a preset threshold, monster/undead spawn rates will increase, and they will begin to actively seek out and take over regions. Once character-per-region density goes above the threshold, the monsters/undead will return to their normal spawn rates and behavior. For Dwilight, the majority of monsters will no longer be confined to the west.
The rates are pretty ridiculous though, and with realms already struggling the hordes just pile up out of nowhere. Just now in Luria we had another 15k sitting in one region at one point.
I am a bit surprised by all of this. Mostly because I am not very involved on DWI with my character (that's my own fault).
But I am in Westfold and we're actively fighting Swordfell. To be honest, communication and RP could be much better (and maybe I should start up something..). But we don't really have problems with Undead or Monsters, or at least not that often.
So I'd say if you want to change realms, those two are good options. I am unsure what others are doing.
That's because Westfold is safely in the middle of four semi-stable realms: HD, Morek, Astrum, and Swordfell. Those with borders facing rogue regions are constantly facing a deluge of monsters (Arnor, Swordfell, LN in the east, plus all the realms facing west).
Then we just killed the rest with 4-5 nobles. They didn't move all together and split up so it was relatively easy pickings. They also suicided on a townsland for a bit.This is one of the best situations you can hope for, since they'll just run into fortifications with established militia over and over again if they can. The only issue is that in the West we don't have the opportunity to do that with regions like Eidulb and Eidulb Outskirts.
We just managed to kill like 30 odd k CS in Luria. 20k from the South, 10k from the North and then probably a few other random ones. I took on the 10k with my 1.6k (initially) CS SF and killed them by myself in 6 consecutive battles. 8)
Then we just killed the rest with 4-5 nobles. They didn't move all together and split up so it was relatively easy pickings. They also suicided on a townsland for a bit.
Oh I should have added: rogues suck. They're an impediment to conflict and a distraction to human interaction. If we'd get rid of them all together, that's be just fine.So humans can go back to still not fighting each other? It seems people forget that the reasons the rogues came was because realms would sit in peace for months, boring their players away, because 'they do not have enough nobles to wage war and ITS TOO RISKY'. So rogues push humans closer together so they annoy each other and have conflicts.
No. Because previous TMP resulted in realms never being able to go to war again, and just changing from morale drops to rogue TOs wont be any different if they're based directly on being at war or not. Rogue spawns drop as human density improves, leaving realms available for war once again.
But people really need to move on from the idea that a map should be fully occupied.
But people really need to move on from the idea that a map should be fully occupied.This x a million. Like how in ec I want Xavax to purge Minas nova and leave the lands rogue.
Only problem becomes if say Madina is succesfull in warding off the monsters and Fissoa is not, they'll be entirely cut off from the other realms.
Yea, small realms can't really compete with the monster/undead avalanches that tend to form up, which is unfortunate since any colonization efforts are doomed to fail given the ferocity of the rogues.Saw your message as my character is a General, but my character realm Morek is really too small to fight against anything rogue. We already lost many battles against rogue monsters in Nimh, my character seriously wounded out cold too. Trying to send army to help Arnor fight against rogue monsters, end up our own capital become rogue. Now I wondering our rogue militia who formerly is Morek militia, did we forget pay them or something? ???
I think one of the biggest issues is that you can't effectively kill the monsters. Depending on the initial size of the group, they'll get down to 10 monsters and then retreat, and then they'll rally and be beaten down to 5 monsters but still remain. Meanwhile you have another 15k CS worth of fresh monsters coming in from the neighboring rogue region which just spits them out like weeds. Sometimes this can be solved by hunting them, but other times they'll instantly rally so you can't touch them.
As for the amount of monsters in the East, you're actually getting a lot of them that are migrating from the West. We've seen the monsters on Western Dwi using the northern rogue regions just to get to Yggdramir, and then they continue going East ignoring us. I am pretty sure I sent out a letter at one point to the General list about the issue, not sure if anyone actually paid attention to it.
Yes. Bore them into declaring war.
It didn't work before, why would it work now?Religions are the key here. Trigger that in game :P
Definitely. When fully occupied, Dwilight just turned into another EC or Atamara. Might as well keep the frontier feeling going.Not fully occupied either Dwilight. Hear rogue just overtake the west lands from Avernus before they even secured it well. Probably that is another one of many reasons that drive rogue force to attack us further inland.
That is laughable I think. When the whole Dwilight was occupied, it just turned into another Atamara. Boredom never ended.
The whole point of rogues pushing people in is to destroy outer realms so we get more inner realms. Inner realms probably should attack outer realms to speed up the process.
One thing I do not like about this monster invasion is how it is attacking all the realms. It should focus on crushing outer realms so we don't get just huge rogue territories in the center of human realms when the invasion finally stops.
I want Atamara back :P
Those are some pretty good points.
I feel like control of non-fortified regions ought to me more fluid. Right now takeovers are just a bunch of either meaningless violence where even the whitest of knights suddenly turn into violent hooligans, or endless freedom celebrations that set regions awash in ale for a week. And if the invaders aren't taking over, they're usually just burning things to the ground, slaughtering hundreds of peasants in the process. War is simply too devastating to be on the losing side, so most realms won't risk it unless victory is all but assured. Other realms just simply can't afford to take much land from their neighbors. Realms should be able to benefit from occupying land without actually taking it over or looting it to cinders.
If I remember correctly, they don't really start a TO unless many of them gather in one place.
Don't worry Westgard, you just gotta get your density up!
Alright I'm getting seriously tired of all these monsters. Luria player here. We have been planning for quite a while to split our realm, once we had recovered a bit, to add a little more dynamism and maybe attract some new players. Several months ago, I announced the realm split and told people to prepare for it happening a few weeks later.
Then a monster horde arrived and took a few regions. We eventually beat them back and retook the regions. Then another horde arrived and the same thing happened. Then another. And another.
By all rights, we should have completely recovered and been ready for the split by now. A few months ago, I had been looking forward to engaging in more inter-realm politicking and RP'ing the restoration of the Lurian Empire. It would have breathed new life into a realm that is slowly dying after the massive population loss and the loss of our territories. Now I can look forward to several months of taking regions and fighting endless hordes of monsters. It's absolutely ridiculous - especially considering we are a realm in the middle of the island and with one of the largest adventurer pops - and it's seriously sapping my enjoyment of the game. There is no activity in our realm anymore, only orders and monster reports, we can't do anything else.
These monsters are a !@#$ing farce, pardon my French. The first time we tried to increase the density, we lost the western island and there was a large exodus of players. Now we have half an island. Of course, you say, I could just move to another realm if it's too bad, but this shouldn't even have happened in the first place! We have had so many plans in Luria to make the game more fun for ourselves, but they're all impossible because of the monsters. I am not playing this game to play whack-a-mole with 10k hordes, I am playing it to RP and play against PLAYERS, and I'm just not getting that any more.
I have played this game for years and enjoyed it immensely, but if this doesn't get better I don't know if I'll be continuing.
Yes. Monsters are trying to push people closer. I can see some problems with this though like Fissoa and Madina case. Fissoa will probably die at some point and Madina will be completely alone. Madina will probably fall eventually but that will take a long time.Why was Westgard created then? We are pretty much Madina/Fissoa of the north-west.
So Madina's case, they will probably never be able to interact with other realms and fight monsters until they lose.
Why was Westgard created then? We are pretty much Madina/Fissoa of the north-west.
Maybe it wasn't clear. Abandoning "outer realms" will just make the "inner realms" the new "outer realms".
Z-A-B-C-D. Abandoning A and B won't result in Z---C-D. It will result in Z-Z-Z-C-D. It is a failing solution.
Maybe I wasn't clear as well. Abandoning outer realms will make monsters stop. To reach that optimal density, some realms go to go. To make the continent less like Riombara on BT, you need to move to realms that are closer to the center. Once enough realms die, monsters will stop.That may sound like a good idea, but we're already haemorrhaging players in Dwilight. When Madina and Arnor fall, our population will be even lower, which means even more regions to let go of. We're certainly not gonna increase our population in a way that will actually allow us to expand any time soon, which means we'll be stuck playing in this little tiny corner of Dwilight. Also, if you wanted to increase our density, why in the world did you have Westgard settle in the western island? Also, an archer nerf? Seriously? I have no words.
3 is the magic number. 94 regions occupied but only 180 characters. 30 or so regions need to be lost. Guess which two realms will make that happen. Losing two biggest realms on Dwilight will make that happen.
Once Fissoa falls, Madina will fall faster. Plus with the coming archer nerf Anaris mentioned, it will make things more difficult for realms to hide behind walls and stop monsters as easily as now. If I were you, I'd start talking to inner realms. There are some inner realms with a spare city. Maybe you can start again.
Or you can join other realms. Or you can try negotiating with realms with multiple cities to move more inland. If you can't hold your current regions, might as well abandon it and look for a new place.
I am not a big fan of this gradual push from monsters. If I were a dev, I would have straight up drawn a line. Everything under the line would have been given 2 months to get the hell out. Then I'd bulldoze the area.
Good that I am not in charge.
So what do you think is the good way to deal with the current situation? Realms to need to lose regions. That won't change. There are too many regions held by players. What would you suggest to reduce it and make realms move closer to each other?
If refreshing an island will make things better, I don't mind having resets.
People seem to want the old way of letting people conquer everything. 10 people running a 30 region realm is not going to happen again.
Well if Dwilight continues to shrink then maybe it is a good time to close it and be done with it. I know at least one person will be very happy about it. Tom.
If refreshing an island will make things better, I don't mind having resets.
People seem to want the old way of letting people conquer everything. 10 people running a 30 region realm is not going to happen again.
Well if Dwilight continues to shrink then maybe it is a good time to close it and be done with it. I know at least one person will be very happy about it. Tom.
Of course.... Offering realistic solutions is always a better option. Though, again, I don't see many. You offer no solution and you question when someone tries to resolve it?
No one was taking risks, no one was interacting. It was one giant peaceful island. Any new player was basically greeted by "oh hi! We're doing nothing, just sit there and play with a stick!"
You're leaving the Devs with these options:
Do nothing and watch the game die from infinite peace
Or
Try something and deal with complaints
You're supposed to be feeling pressure and this time is supposed to be difficult. Difficulty is what dwilight is supposed to be about, remember? Uncharted land with Daimons and stuff. Wasn't that fun?
What if down the road that happens again? When the player.base grows more, something similar happens? What if something better happens?
There is so much more opportunity that will be available and you're all not even giving it a chance to progress. If things remain the same, the situation is going to get worse. That is the fact you cannot refuse. It has been proven numerous times.
All the devs can do is try to help the game with what they know, trying to prevent the same things from happening again.
I see a lot of closed minds rejecting change, that never ends well... Not in real life, not in game either. Change allows for both improvement and failure, if you fear failure too much, you'll be stuck and nothing will progress.
It already has progressed. Nearly half (the western half) of the realms in Dwilight were wiped out. Some people moved east; a lot quit the game entirely. More than a year was given for this solution to 'work'. It has not. Players have been voicing their discontent with the mechanic; they have been silenced, and quit. Something indeed has to change; the rogue mechanics forcibly pressuring outer realms is not working.
.....No comments on this?
Have you seen any noticeable change in the monster behaviour yet?
.....No comments on this?
Have you seen any noticeable change in the monster behaviour yet?
Not sure what comments were expected.Because sarcastic replies are very helpful and appreciated. Again, no matter what is done, some will complain, rather than offer constructive criticism.
So this change makes life easy for old half-dormant realms in the east. Good for them?
I was mostly just surprised that discussion stopped so entirely, after it was so lively.Well, the bulk of the discussion, as I understand it, was frontier realms suggesting that monster spawns were perhaps a bit too extreme to handle.
And I'm not sure what you expected. Realms on the frontier of Dwilight are monster-fighting realms. There was a brief period when this was not true, but for the majority of its life, that has been the reality. If you don't like playing in a monster-fighting realm, go to one of the "half-dormant realms in the east" and stir !@#$ up.
Because sarcastic replies are very helpful and appreciated. Again, no matter what is done, some will complain, rather than offer constructive criticism.I think we are all grown up people here and can handle mild sarcasm.
That's the problem, though -- the frontier realms will pretty much always be at the mercy of the inner realms, since the inner realms don't have rogues constantly sapping at their strength. Their grand solution? "Oh, just move to the inner realms, because Player Density amirite."
That solution completely ignores the fact that moving to all the inner realms will only push the rogue border eastwards. In the process, many if not all of the players will be frustrated: the frontier players for having to leave their realm behind and again starting anew, and the inner players for having their realms invaded. All of this will lead to a risk of higher player dropouts and completely work against the goal of a healthier game.
But if the total number of player-controlled regions shrinks, while the total number of nobles does not, the rogues will reduce their efforts to destroy humanity.
What if... we get stuck in a vicious cycle? Like someone pointed out, if outer realms die, there is no guarantee those nobles will move inland. They may just not play on Dwilight. And if that repeats well... wouldn't that be a repeat of the big freeze?
The travel times are horrendous in the West. 19 hour marches between regions is forcing us to spend a day and a half just marching and delaying travel to try and get everyone to arrive on time.
Yea, strategy and finesse don't quite work when you have hordes spawning and moving to every single border region you have at the same time, and then appearing in another once you leave. Besides, some regions we have held for weeks and raised production to their highest, yet we are still stuck with cruddy roads.
Nope, we're still getting hit with 2k CS monster groups, and a lot more of them now. They're also now super aggressive in terms of messing regions up.
No extra aggression has been added, nor has the number or strength of monsters being spawned been increased. The recent change in code was a straight-up nerf to the monsters, with most of the effect being on the ones in the East.
I am sorry to say your observation is wrong. Eidulb has been getting hit with monsters almost every day. It didn't get attacked like for one day over the past month. The size varies however. Mostly monsters attack in 8~9k CS. When there are more, they do hit the city with 20k CS occasionally.
There are now 86k CS of Monsters and Undead in Port Raviel.
Thats almost a record!
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Records_of_BattleMaster
(not that these records are updated enough, still that is a very large group of rogues in one region.)
Time to run boys. Time to find a new home :o
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/007/423/untitle.JPG
You stubborn fool!
You are not supposed to fight it though. You are supposed to pack your things and move somewhere or crush other realms for your own survival. It was stated, monsters will continue to swarm realms until noble to region ratio becomes 2~3 to 1. If I remember correctly, it is around 3 meaning unless we go down to 65 regions, monsters will hit realms hard. At the moment players control 107 or so regions so players need to lose about 42 regions.
This is why you do not want to see other realms expand as their expansion will cause more pressure on other fronts.
If I were Madinans, I would head north and abandon the current lands. You won't last long now Port Raviel is gone. Monsters will pour into Madina City as well from Port Raviel and once you have to deal with another front, you won't last long. So start planning your next moves. You have more time than realms that were lost to the ice age.
When realms only had 90 regions, monsters weren't as bad as now but people kept expanding and now hordes are pissed. How unfortunate.
Monsters cannot hit equally. They are not smart enough. You can predict which region will get attacked by more monsters however by looking at how many regions are connected to your region. If your regoin is connected to more regions, you will see more monsters being funneled into your region.
1. The whole point of the rogue is to make the West mipossible to conquer. The simple reason is, before that happenned nobles were spread too thin and there was no reason for conflict. It was really boring. Players need to understand that too much expansion room is no good.But that's wrong. There was a lot of conflict before the ice-age/rogue wave that hit Dwilight, as Barca and D'Hara and pals were already at war with Luria. And that massive war against Luria was the opposite of fun, you had one refugee realm that was forced to flee and lost 3/4's of its playerbase just crossing the channel trying to fight against Luria which was already established and dug in, and allies that couldn't actually make headway because Luria was just an absolute monster in terms of player count.
2. The previous situation worked better, when the monsters were confined to the west. Then realms could focus inward and human wars and conflict were more likely. For example the massive war with Luria Nova against most of the island.
I have a couple of points to make:
1. The whole point of the rogue is to make the West mipossible to conquer. The simple reason is, before that happenned nobles were spread too thin and there was no reason for conflict. It was really boring. Players need to understand that too much expansion room is no good.
2. The previous situation worked better, when the monsters were confined to the west. Then realms could focus inward and human wars and conflict were more likely. For example the massive war with Luria Nova against most of the island.
I suggest the best solution is to confine the rogue hordes to the west again, and make the west unlivable. That will force all knights to turn eastwards and interesting wars will start again.
You should see that CS level decrease over next 1-4 turns.
You are not suppose to fight it though. You are supposed to pack your things and move somewhere or crush other realms for your own survival. It was stated, monsters will continue to swarm realms until noble to region ratio becomes 2~3 to 1. If I remember correctly, it is around 3 meaning unless we go down to 65 regions, monsters will hit realms hard. At the moment players control 107 or so regions so players need to lose about 42 regions.
This is why you do not want to see other realms expand as their expansion will cause more pressure on other fronts.
If I were Madinans, I would head north and abandon the current lands. You won't last long now Port Raviel is gone. Monsters will pour into Madina City as well from Port Raviel and once you have to deal with another front, you won't last long. So start planning your next moves. You have more time than realms that were lost to the ice age.
When realms only had 90 regions, monsters weren't as bad as now but people kept expanding and now hordes are pissed. How unfortunate.
While I actually enjoy the monsters, and made it a point to go to a realm where I could fight them the most, I would like to point out that "cripple realms to make them attack others" is a strategy that has been attempted at lot in the past, in multiple forms, and it has *never* worked out.
There's something that feels kind of wrong with those choke points accumulating so many monsters, though. Since monsters don't de-spawn, or at least spawn way quicker than they spawn, it leads to ridiculous forces eventually concentrating to the point of no one being able to handle them.
Perhaps the code should limit how many monsters may aggregate to an area, severely reduce combat effectiveness of monsters when they are many, and/or cap the total population of rogues the continent can have?
It's not the fault of the border realms that the player density on the island as a whole is so low. Thus, the fact that the current "solution" affects primarily these realms is, in my opinion, the main driver of player dissatisfaction. Zakky, it doesn't matter how many times you say it, forcing well populated realms to become refugees due to their historic location has not been a net-benefit to the player count in the past, and it certainly won't be if it comes to that now. This thread is 7 months old and the core issues are still there. How many more months or years of sitting in a chokepoint city will players have to go through before they can play Battlemaster again?
Again, it's NOT their fault that they like D'hara, or Madina, or wherever else. Forcing them to leave/move for an artificial reason (dev-set monster levels) is always going to be viewed poorly and drive frustration.
It's not the fault of the border realms that the player density on the island as a whole is so low. Thus, the fact that the current "solution" affects primarily these realms is, in my opinion, the main driver of player dissatisfaction. Zakky, it doesn't matter how many times you say it, forcing well populated realms to become refugees due to their historic location has not been a net-benefit to the player count in the past, and it certainly won't be if it comes to that now. This thread is 7 months old and the core issues are still there. How many more months or years of sitting in a chokepoint city will players have to go through before they can play Battlemaster again?
Again, it's NOT their fault that they like D'hara, or Madina, or wherever else. Forcing them to leave/move for an artificial reason (dev-set monster levels) is always going to be viewed poorly and drive frustration.
Trust me. Nobody dislikes this idea of hammering realms with monsters until people break. I can guarantee this will only piss people off and make them leave at the end, making monsters advance even farther due to lack of people. Region to noble ratio of 3 to 1? That is achievable. People will constantly leave before we reach that point. We tell players to encourage other players to do certain tasks yet devs are forcing people to a certain direction. That to me is rather unfair. But something must be done to reduce the number of regions as there are too many per player at the moment and Madina, Fissoa, D'Hara and Luria are too far in the south to ever escape the fate of fighting monsters. If it was in my power, I would have just force relocated all these realms and took cities from realms with multiple cities. Like relocate Madina, D'Hara to Springdale and Mimer or Luria to Nifelheim. The current monster method doesn't happen over time. It gradually builds up as people expand more and more. It was manageable when players had 90 regions. Now it is very difficult because people decided to expand. Look at Avernus. They started to occupy former rogue regions. When one side of the map starts to become player controlled, some regions must be taken away. Since most large monsters live in the western lands, realms that border the western regions are suffering. To avoid this, players need to create more rogue regions. I am sure somebody explained this multiple times but since people do not want to do anything like this, monsters will continue to destroy realms until it becomes manageable again.
How would you convince D'Hara, Madina, Fissoa and Luria to relocate to somewhere closer to where the majority of realms currently are? Once D'Hara falls, Madina, Fissoa, and Luria will be crushed under the waves of monsters relatively quickly. I hope people are planning ahead because 80k CS moving together is not something you can stop that easily.
I am sorry but nobody has any amazing idea to resolve the player density issue. Most people probably want to be left alone and play the game like 3 years ago when you could expand without any problem. But the game was never designed to be won by players. Realms were never meant to be able to expand that large. Devs are trying to solve problems to extend its lifespan while players want to be left alone and play the game until it dies.
Good news is we have plateaued now so at least we are maintaining the same number of players for awhile. Now we just need people to somehow get more players to increase the density and that will spare all of us from this monster blight
On a tangeant note... is Dwilight heading towards a new food crisis?
Realms are focused around city cores and as realms were shrunk to increase density, rural outliers were abandonned. The monsters enforcing density are not only eating through a ton of the realms' stocks, but also cutting down their production capacity, while barely lowering their consumption. I remember calculating back in the day that if Dwilight was at 100% population, it would starve itself, having too much population for its potention food output. I think the values might have changed since, and thankfully Darfix isn't colonized (it was a huge part of the problem), but looking at the food stats, the only realms in the "safe" food supply zone are tiny, almost all realms are at the unsafe or outright deficit level.
Devs might want to think about the food situation the monsters are bringing before an actual crisis breaks out, because I suspect Dwilight is burning its stockpiles fairly quickly.
Moving the country Russia into the USA for example could be done, but that still woudn't be the same Russia.
The interesting thing is that the three highest populated realms in Dwilight are those that border the West - Westgard; Astrum; and D'Hara. Below that, you have Westfold which is a bit further inland to the East. As has been said before, those realms are not really the problem. They're all clearly doing something right to maintain their player levels. In Westgard, we've managed to maintain the highest player density on Dwilight in spite of constantly being hammer by monsters and undead. Or perhaps partly because of it, since we probably attract people who enjoy the PvE gameplay.
The thing is that to obtain the 'desireable' player density over all of Dwilight is probably not achieveable if it involves losing 42 regions as Zakky mentioned the other day. Given the current flow of monsters from West to East that probably means losing 4.5 entire realms (some combination of Madina; D'Hara; Astrum; Westgard; or Avernus or Arnor or Fissoa) depending on how the monsters migrate.
We know that enforced player migrations due to realms being destroyed simply don't work. Please let's at least say we've learned that from the disasterous ice age experiment. Players will quit the island (and inevitably the game in a few cases), which will drive down the playerbase on the island, also driving down the player density. Then you need to lose more player controlled regions because your player density has gone down again. Rinse and repeat until you're left with just a small core of players who are left clinging to their devotion to the island. We saw exactly this happen on FEI following the ice age. We don't need to repeat old mistakes.
The interesting thing is that the three highest populated realms in Dwilight are those that border the West - Westgard; Astrum; and D'Hara. Below that, you have Westfold which is a bit further inland to the East. As has been said before, those realms are not really the problem. They're all clearly doing something right to maintain their player levels. In Westgard, we've managed to maintain the highest player density on Dwilight in spite of constantly being hammer by monsters and undead. Or perhaps partly because of it, since we probably attract people who enjoy the PvE gameplay.
The thing is that to obtain the 'desireable' player density over all of Dwilight is probably not achieveable if it involves losing 42 regions as Zakky mentioned the other day. Given the current flow of monsters from West to East that probably means losing 4.5 entire realms (some combination of Madina; D'Hara; Astrum; Westgard; or Avernus or Arnor or Fissoa) depending on how the monsters migrate.
We know that enforced player migrations due to realms being destroyed simply don't work. Please let's at least say we've learned that from the disasterous ice age experiment. Players will quit the island (and inevitably the game in a few cases), which will drive down the playerbase on the island, also driving down the player density. Then you need to lose more player controlled regions because your player density has gone down again. Rinse and repeat until you're left with just a small core of players who are left clinging to their devotion to the island. We saw exactly this happen on FEI following the ice age. We don't need to repeat old mistakes.
While I enjoy my time in Westgard, it should also be noted that it considerably dwindled over what it once was: it now has a lot less nobles than before, and the great density is partly a result of losing almost all regions it had. That being said, it remains one of the most populous realms.
While I enjoy my time in Westgard, it should also be noted that it considerably dwindled over what it once was: it now has a lot less nobles than before, and the great density is partly a result of losing almost all regions it had. That being said, it remains one of the most populous realms.
To be quite clear: the dev team has no intention to destroy any realms on Dwilight to increase density. We certainly have no particular belief that destroying southern realms will improve matters.
The monsters being dependent on player density is not in any way intended to indicate that we want realms to be destroyed. We don't have a solid plan for how to increase density in a healthy way, but we do believe that doing so is necessary.
If players chose to abandon outer realms to migrate to inner realms and increase the density there, we would be very happy about it—but it would only work if they did choose to do it.
I do have, in development, a change that would stop monsters from hammering repeatedly on the chokepoints and instead spread their attacks out across the east: allow them to cross sea zones. However, it is still not quite working right.
USA is on holiday this week so no one is available. Things will have to wait.
Combine this with a higher difficult to TO rogue regions when density is too high (this will avoid expansion) but still allow TO's of other realm regions (or regions that recently went rogue (last month?) to go at normal speed. This would facilitate normal war between wars and allow realms to retake some regions also if they lose it, so as to not force unnatural shrinking and abuse during war fare.
In my opinion we should also remove the long distance penalties allowing for 2 types of warfare for those who wish and wish to take the risk. But this is a different matter and I understand it's sensitive among the devs, so please do see the earlier 2 recommendations separate from this one as they'll function without as well.
I am not supposed to reveal anything but since you are asking what I think, here are MY THOUGHTS meaning they will do little to change anything.
1st, you can not freeze the western dwilight like they were before since that means destroying Westgard. That will anger players there. I think monsters should still attack anyone trying to stay on Western Dwilight. That is fine I feel.
I like the idea of making rogue region TOs very difficult. Maybe almost impossible as long as the density isn't there. This means if people lose their regions to monsters, it will be hard for them to recover. This might not work very well for Westgard so I am not so sure but I know you want Westgard dead so you probably don't mind it.
I also agree with removing long distance penalty but it got shot down. There is a way to work around this however. You can make an ally close to the realm you want to fight. This will encourage realms to ally more I feel but it does work.
I do like the idea of making TOs of rogue regions much harder if the realm attempting the TO has low density.
We will not be blocking off the West. We will not be destroying Westgard.
Either way, something needs to be done.
Currently any number of realms could wage a war upon the gateway realms by simply expanding and let the game send waves after waves against them.
This alone is indicative of a broken game.
Also, currently there are a number of players already playing two characters on the island, a Noble and an Adventurer. This allows them to use both in their own ways against the monsters. Allowing two Nobles will only shift the Adv characters to Noble characters but for the most part, the island population will remain the same. Just to get an idea of how many are already using the double character method I mentioned, just check out the Character listing and arrange by family.
Just allowing players to run two Nobles will not magically double the player base. Things need to be done to attract players, not drive them away.
No. Two nobles per realm is never coming back period. We had enough of hive minded characters.
No. Two nobles per realm is never coming back period. We had enough of hive minded characters.
Two nobles per continent need not allow two nobles per realm. Just saying, not sure what I think about it myself.
Multiple nobles in the same realm was never the primary reason we changed the restrictions to one noble per continent.
The real problem is having two nobles in prominent positions in two different realms—then making sure those two realms will never, ever go to war or oppose each other.
I'm quite sure you would both be capable of keeping two characters on opposite sides of a conflict separate, and enjoying doing so. I have done so myself.
But there are too many people in this game who either can't, or aren't interested in doing so. That's why Atamara sank.
That's why we can't have nice things.
News Ticker
Posted: Yesterday at 02:39:03 AMSea Monster Bugfix
A bug was recently fixed that was preventing monsters at sea from reaching land.
Those on Beluaterra and Dwilight should start noticing monsters start to show up in coastal regions over the next few days.
Does that mean a realm like Madina will be flooded by the beasts in every region effectively making our defensive bottleneck as Candiels Fields/Candiels moot? Does that mean the beasts will instead swim across the open seas to the eastern realms bypassing Madina completely, thus making a direct result against the expansion of Luria for which the bottleneck realms are paying the price dearly?
And since it was mentioned, isn't using the game mechanics of taking lands knowing the game code will send more rogues against certain realms a way of warring against those realms without actually declaring war against the rules?
If it is then that needs to stop, it is abusing a game mechanic which is an OOC issue to cause an IC result. It is a form of cheating.
At present, it looks like all or almost all of the seabound monsters are those that just happened to wander into the sea. They will most likely wander back to approximately their point of origin (so most of them will land back in rogue lands).
The whole point of allowing monsters to go by sea, though, is so that it will be not just border realms like Madina that get hit with the monsters, but all the realms that border the inner sea.
So they went into the seas... but didn't sail into further sea regions, closer to the eastern realms?
I guess the party in Sabadell's gonna last a while, then.
Well, I can guarantee you they're not deliberately targeting Sabadell. As I believe I've mentioned, I want Westgard to be viable, even if it is still difficult.I agree with this assessment, particularly that Sabadell is most exposed non-rogue region, 'always move to smash adjacent non-rogue region' code needing tweaked, and not enough groups getting long-distance targets.
I suspect that right now, the problem is that Sabadell is the most exposed non-rogue region—it borders a lot of rogue regions, so each time a rogue group wanders near it, they notice it's there and immediately move to it. Eidulb, on the other hand, has a donut, so only monsters that have already wandered into that will target it.
I think the "always move to smash an adjacent non-rogue region" part of their code is going to need some tweaking.
I also think there still aren't enough groups getting long-distance targets, when that should be reducing the number of groups in the West that are wandering around and ending up bashing their heads on Westgard.
Frankly, I'm seriously considering eliminating donut regions entirely. They were an interesting experiment, but unfortunately I believe they have failed.
...
I've made some of the changes I outlined: monsters will now have a much lower chance of attacking high-density realms, and more groups will take it into their heads to go charging off across the sea to hit random human-held regions in large bands.
Please keep me updated as to how the movement of monsters changes.
Looks like there's a metric crapton of them in Paisland now. :P
Hm, yeah. Not as many as I had show up in a few different regions during my testing, though.
At one point, there were going to be 150k+ CS hitting Eidulb—all from a single region.
Really? Isn't Astrum one of the densest realms? It's one of the most populous, at least, though it's quite large.
Also, that's brutal. XD Is that to target Eidulb itself, or only to transit towards eastern targets?
Also, Madina has little moral high grounds to complain. Madina, D'Hara, Luria, Fissoa, and all other low-density realms have continuously expanded despite knowing that 1) they already have very low density and 2) monster spawns are regulated by density. It's just that, so far, Westgard had gotten 100% of the blowback of your expansion.
Takeover (1 hour, 5 minutes ago)
message to all nobles on Dwilight
Luria Nova has taken control of Dantooine. The region used to belong to (rogue).
Madina could have been removed from the map RL years ago, and things wouldn't be any different today.
Do you have a database with a bunch of target lists? I guess... you kinda need to, else it wouldn't even be possible, right? Never really thought about this before. :P
Sabadell did attract some new monsters, but it only got to 20k so far, and they quickly split up over various regions. Some to Ammando, some to Aquitain, some who knows where. They came from Eidulb Outskirts, might have went back there. At least we got a break for a few days, we got to refit, our allies went to refit, we are retaking our core regions, sure feels like a lot of pressure is off us already.
Now, if being adjacent to a ton of rogue regions was what made it attractive, and we could only make the Shrine rich enough to field decent militia, it would make a nice monster killing funnel. :P
We were wondering, though, how do non-physical barriers influence monster pathing, if at all? If monsters want to attack Avernus and Westgard holds Ygg d'Razhuul, the only land path there, will that in any way influence their behavior as opposed to Yggdramir was adjacent to "the largest contiguous rogue region"? Same with Eidulb Outskirts and Astrum? We used to think that Ygg d'Razhuul was hopeless to hold, because all the monsters aiming east wanted to pass by there, but the monsters stopped going there as soon as we did, they never seemed to actually try to use the pass. Since then sea travel was also added for them, though.
If if the monsters take Eidulb away from Astrum, will they then just take the ferry to Libidizedd? Or can they not take sea routes anymore?
This is why Sabadell, in particular, gets hit so damn hard: it borders a LOT of regions, which means monsters from almost all of those regions see it as the only bordering non-rogue region. (And, of course, monsters slightly further away see it as a possible nearby target.)
Well, not if something happened there like happened to Paisly the other day. I don't think you could ever stack enough militia in any region to repel over 100k CS of monsters in one go :P
...For what it's worth, if you could manage to get enough people together (probably a coalition of realms would be required, starting a new monster-buffer-realm), you could cut the entire northwest section off from the main rogue area, pacifying the monsters there (somewhat), by holding Duil, Chrysantalys, Wallershire, and the Corridor of Torment.
Of course, that would probably be nigh-impossible to take, and hell to hold, but hey, life goals, right? ;D
Does anyone know what causes rogues on Dwilight to fight each other now and then?
For example most recently in Darfix and Under Darfix.
The same in Madina. The new coding allowed them to bypass Candiels and assault half a dozen regions we cannot defend.
Soon, the hordes will be at the door of Fissoa and many of the players in Madina will simply leave, that is the plan I have heard many mention both in this Thread and among ourselves in OOC chatter.
The coding is not allowing the monsters to cross the ocean, it merely allows them to bypass a region used as a chokepoint and tear apart realms.
I hope the mods are pleased, less players in the near future for Dwilight. Thanks
Honestly - was the monsters saving Westfold from getting rekt a intended thing or a coincidence? Either way I kind of appreciate the hard-mode on.
Tell us how you really feel Chenier... I have a hard time having a problem with Madina and Fissoa when Astrum and Swordfell are around.
Dwilights been a terrible continent for a long time though.
And you get 30k CS! And you get 30k CS! But that's not all, for an all-time low price of 0 gold, you can get an EXTRA 30k CS of undead and monsters landing in your coastal regions over two turns.
That's right, doomstack hordes are this summer's hottest gift. Give them to your neighbors, your enemies, and even yourself! 8)
The code will not destroy Madina unless you truly, amazingly, suck. Do you think you are the firsts to be whacked by monsters? These are rookie numbers. Madina was MADE in far worse conditions, and numberless realms, after that, were MADE in much, much, much worse conditions. Many grew to be superpowers.
I am quite interested how people manage to adopt to the sea traveling rogues and if we can manage to ambush their landings effectively.Let me share a bit of my experience as Ruler of Morek. Yes, we got shocked when rogue overwhelmed our militia at Aegir Deep(townsland level 2 wall) easily from the sea. Then we realize we could not face off that big CS rogue force. The only sensible thing to do, is to report on their movements and update allies, neighboring realms about the situation. I think information sharing are not being done much if any do share. If you checked Morek Empire nobles count, you will realize how few nobles Morek has presently. With our limited army and resources, the only way we will win is by working together. So we wait until the massive CS rogue force split up to many regions from Aegir Deep. I think almost everyone who fought rogue before know this. As to Chenier statement about landlocked realm, Morek is one such realm. When rogue split up, they have less CS, but we still suffered defeat when our refitted force attacked them at Aegir Deep. Then they slowly went away(rogue behavior?). Unfortunately the rogue force had too much time taking over many of our lands(except capital), eventually we lost Nimh, a rural region which turned rogue. We almost lost Mark, another rural region, at this point my character Gary was thinking he would be the last Grand Duke/Ruler of Morek. We fought back rogue smaller force at Mark for many turns now and we won, thanks to DeVerci General character. All we need to do are understanding rogue behavior and by working together. Sometimes it is hard to predict attacks, so the only way we can make it up, is to refit, recruit and counter attack when we have the chances. When I first arrived at Dwilight, I had the impression that this island is to cater for PvE (Player versus Environment). However over time, I not only seen PvE but it also does become PvP(Player versus Player) as in realms conflicts.
I wonder if monsters suffer the same landing penalty as players.
Ditch your lousy governments, settle in Westgard, serve humanity.
If they don't, it's a bug.
Putting militia in coastal regions to ward off rogue landings should be a highly effective strategy.
If they don't, it's a bug.
Putting militia in coastal regions to ward off rogue landings should be a highly effective strategy.
Now I'm wondering what it would look like if the entire noble population of the East joined Westgard and made a concerted push to colonize NW Dwilight...
So Delvin, how many monsters have their eyes on Sabadell this time around, just for fun? :P
Seems less ridiculous than before, though still puzzling how popular it is.
Right now? Not that many; just about 20k incoming. But you can probably see that from scout reports already.
The problem before was not that monsters from, say, Vakreno Heaps were beelining for Sabadell. It was that, simply because of Sabadell's geography, monsters passing through that general area were much more likely to select it as a destination.
I think we killed a big chunk of that when we basically told them "treat high-density realms as non-targets", but there's likely to still be increased traffic through it just because it borders so many regions.
And look. Now people are planning on fighting Westgard. PvP here we come. I don't see any problem.
A long distance war, utterly boring, upon the one realm that was never about PvP, and despises the mere idea of it.
Wonderful progress, that was?
Things were more fun just fighting the rogues. At least then, when clans spied on us, we didn't have to care.
And that realm made it PvP. How great is that.
Westgard's entire realm identity is based on PvE. It was set up that way by the players because they always expected the monsters to be around. Following recent discussion within the realm, its also become clear that by far the majority of the players enjoy the PvE play and would prefer to keep doing that.
Then shouldn't have caused issues with other players. Now it is a PvP realm whether you like it or not.
If Westgard's players were enjoying the PvE, and that's what they were there for, then it's not great at all if that's being taken away from them.
Just because that's the way you like to play doesn't mean it's the way everybody has to play, so long as what they're doing isn't causing a problem for the island/game as a whole.
As for the monster spawns, my admittedly short experience in D'Hara is that we are seeing quite enough numbers of rogue forces threatening our border thank you very much :)
Out of curiosity, what sort of strength?