31
Feature Requests / Re: More options for Stewards
« on: October 05, 2020, 04:00:19 PM »
At what point do you stop being the Lord in anything but name...?
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32
Announcements / Testing Region Stat Bug Fixed
« on: October 01, 2020, 06:22:22 PM »
A longstanding bug in how region stats are adjusted at the turn change on testing islands (BT, Dwilight) has just been fixed. It was copying adjustments to morale and applying them to independence, instead of applying the correct adjustments to independence.
The likely effects of this fix will be:
We apologize for the confusion this will likely create.
The likely effects of this fix will be:
- Regions affected by the new Sparse Realm Penalties on testing will actually start to feel the penalties now, since they primarily affect independence.
- Regions that are being well-cared-for should stop showing a frustrating tendency to have control drop for no apparent reason.
We apologize for the confusion this will likely create.
33
Feature Requests / Re: Option to Auto-Add 'Dear John'
« on: September 18, 2020, 04:54:59 PM »
Including full titles in the salutation of a letter—especially for many nobles at once!—would be inappropriately grandiose in all but the very most formal of circumstances. The vast majority of the time, you will be writing to someone in only one of their capacities—usually the "highest", though not always—and it would be much more appropriate to only address them as "King Kepler" or "Warder of the Church Kepler". Furthermore, most such titles have a mode of address that would be considered to be more correct when addressing them directly ("Your Majesty," "Your Holiness", "Warder", etc), which our current title system does not capture in any way.
It would certainly be nice to have those modes of address alongside the titles in the system; however, that's significantly more work.
All in all, I could see possibly adding an option on a per-message basis to automatically add in a single title in the salutation.
In general, though, if you're playing a game like BattleMaster on your phone, while I am more than willing to try to improve the experience in many ways, this game is centered very heavily around written messages, and until your phone has a telepathic interface, there's no way for the game to know what the "right" mode of address is for any given letter.
It would certainly be nice to have those modes of address alongside the titles in the system; however, that's significantly more work.
All in all, I could see possibly adding an option on a per-message basis to automatically add in a single title in the salutation.
In general, though, if you're playing a game like BattleMaster on your phone, while I am more than willing to try to improve the experience in many ways, this game is centered very heavily around written messages, and until your phone has a telepathic interface, there's no way for the game to know what the "right" mode of address is for any given letter.
34
BM General Discussion / Re: Lemon Fame 3
« on: September 12, 2020, 08:36:12 PM »Heroic Death Fame Point:
Hero dies in battle with a "Fame Threshold" of 200 or greater. "Fame Threshold" = x, Prestige = p, Honor = h.
"Fame Threshold" is determined by x = 5(p) + h
This is correct.
35
Announcements / Region Revolt Bug - Updated
« on: September 11, 2020, 02:53:41 PM »
Update (17:30 server time): All regions should now be returned to their previous owners, with duchies, lords, and estates restored. If any have been missed, please contact us ASAP (on the Forum Helpline, on Discord by pinging @Delvin Anaris, or at community@battlemaster.org).
The massive number of regions that revolted at the turn change was a bug—I believe I have localized and fixed the source of the bug, and will be running tests to confirm before the sunset turn.
All regions that revolted this turn change will be manually returned to their owners, with our apologies.
The massive number of regions that revolted at the turn change was a bug—I believe I have localized and fixed the source of the bug, and will be running tests to confirm before the sunset turn.
All regions that revolted this turn change will be manually returned to their owners, with our apologies.
36
Announcements / Sparse Realm Penalty Adjustments
« on: September 10, 2020, 06:28:54 PM »
Due to both player feedback and our own observations over the past day, we are making some adjustments to the newly-added sparse realm penalties. They were never intended to hit so hard, so fast, and we apologize for the excessively aggressive effects.
- The penalties will now have a 3-day warning period before applying to a given region.
- The penalties will ease in much more slowly on stable islands, slightly more slowly on testing (which already had them slower than stable).
- The across-the-board penalties for regions lacking a lord, a knight, or both have been removed, at least for the time being.
- Later today, a tool will be added on the Information page allowing everyone to see both which realms are in most danger, and how many regions the realm currently stands to lose.
37
Announcements / Supplemental Update: Sparse Realm Penalties
« on: September 08, 2020, 06:28:06 PM »
A supplemental update is going live with a few small fixes, noted below, and the introduction of penalties for realms below the density limit. The details of these penalties are as follows:
Other minor fixes:
- All regions in realms below the density limit that lack at least one knight, a Lord, or both will suffer small to moderate control penalties.
- In such realms, up to three regions will suffer further penalties, with the regions being chosen by three criteria:
- Number of neighbouring regions belonging to a realm above the density limit
- Number of neighbouring rogue regions
- Distance from capital
- These regions will be ranked, with the furthest or most surrounded by high-density/rogue regions ranking highest, and the higher the rank among those three regions, the steeper the penalties.
- Regions that fall within these three will also have significantly increased chances of revolt.
Other minor fixes:
- Bankers were, in rare circumstances, unable to access marketplaces in some of their realm's regions, even when within the realm. This has been fixed.
- The remaining pieces of the additional voting options have been added. (Andrew says: "Wololo!")
- The queue for ruler/admin OOC messages no longer shows up when it should not.
38
East Island / Re: Good Job Dudes
« on: September 06, 2020, 02:56:07 PM »I'm curious what in particular brought on the changes?
They're a long time in coming, particularly the breaking of Sirion's defensive wall. We also knew that the islands were just too poor to be viable as anything but a realm of outcasts, which doesn't make for good gameplay.
I'd been working on a few different versions of a modified EC for a little while, after asking Rowan on Discord to put together some mockups (the majority of the change in overall design can be credited to him, though I mixed and matched from his versions), but was concerned over possible backlash, primarily from Sirion and Nivemus. Then, when they pulled that stunt in Commonyr, I decided I didn't care what Sirion and Nivemus thought; I was going to do what I knew was best for the continent as a whole.
39
East Island / Re: Good Job Dudes
« on: September 04, 2020, 03:18:43 PM »
Thanks a lot 
It's always a risk doing big changes like that; I've been pleasantly surprised at the response thus far.
It's always a risk doing big changes like that; I've been pleasantly surprised at the response thus far.
40
Announcements / Early Sept 2020 Updates
« on: September 02, 2020, 09:53:05 PM »
Major Changes
Please note that there will be an additional major change coming in the next week or so: Realms whose size exceeds the density threshold, but which have been effectively "grandfathered in" thus far, will start to find that regions above that threshold become much harder to hold onto.
Minor Changes
Bugfixes
- A wide variety of new voting options
- Vulgarity Reports are once again fully functional
- In addition to donating to Tom to support the server, you can also donate to Anaris or subscribe to his Patreon. Support options for Vita still in the works.
- War Declarations are now reciprocal: the defender can (and must, at some point) state their goals
- War Declarations can be edited, and maintain a history of previous versions
- Rulers can now, within limits, create "court duchies" with no regions
- Realms above the density limits will start to find regions beyond that limit starting to lose stats
Please note that there will be an additional major change coming in the next week or so: Realms whose size exceeds the density threshold, but which have been effectively "grandfathered in" thus far, will start to find that regions above that threshold become much harder to hold onto.
Minor Changes
- Last Login time will update with more actions, to avoid spurious auto-deletion
- Change the long-line protection to no longer insert spaces
- Improve Message Archive to support sent messages as well
- Some scrolls' effects now scale with your spellcasting skill
- Under certain circumstances, the region will receive a message about why a battle did not occur there
- The Realm List now shows total & vacant estates
- Rogue prison is now easier to escape from
- The Tournament page now shows how long it will take you to get there, and how long until it starts
- Militia units will show how many men they have when looking to add more men to them
- The Message Search page now has the same per-message links other message pages have
- If your unit deserts, the unit status report will have a more urgent title
Bugfixes
- RP Interaction Preference will maintain across previews
- Fixed a crash in Abandon Region
- Several bugs in hanging rebels were Fixed
- When sending messages to the OOC channel, your Real Name will correctly be hidden if your user info is set to Private
- Squashed several different versions of bugs in changing unit designation after paying them
- When looting, reduce sympathy for the realm doing the looting, not the realm being looted
- Fixed some bugs in displaying the Rich Text Editor when a realm or character name had an apostrophe
41
Feature Requests / Re: Meaningful Paganism Penalty
« on: August 28, 2020, 06:40:53 PM »Oh ok then. Is there a thread for the religion overhaul I could contribute to?
Not at present. It's pretty much in Vita's and my head for the time being.
42
Feature Requests / Re: Meaningful Paganism Penalty
« on: August 27, 2020, 02:09:09 PM »
We have discussed this multiple times in the past, and if I recall correctly, our consensus has been that we will not institute such a penalty before the vaguely-planned Religion Overhaul.
As it stands, being a "pagan" simply means that you do not follow a religion that has been founded (and has not since collapsed) within the game mechanics, on that island. So a follower of Daishi who emigrates to Dwilight, or a follower of Sanguis Astroism who emigrates to Beluaterra, would be considered pagan.
When we do get around to the Religion Overhaul, my intention, at least, is that there be more opportunities for those following game-mechanic religions, but very few penalties for those who do not.
As it stands, being a "pagan" simply means that you do not follow a religion that has been founded (and has not since collapsed) within the game mechanics, on that island. So a follower of Daishi who emigrates to Dwilight, or a follower of Sanguis Astroism who emigrates to Beluaterra, would be considered pagan.
When we do get around to the Religion Overhaul, my intention, at least, is that there be more opportunities for those following game-mechanic religions, but very few penalties for those who do not.
43
BM General Discussion / Re: A serious and constructive discussion on recent change in staff involvement
« on: August 25, 2020, 08:14:35 PM »
It's not an all-or-nothing question, and it basically comes down to the same thing as if it was any other force in the game.
It's fine if a religion is the force behind some wars.
It's not fine if a religion gets realms totalling more than 1/3 of the continent to all act like allies.
There's gray area in between those two, in which it would depend more on the particular situation.
The general rules I hope people are taking to heart are
1) Controlling most of a continent is not a "win condition" for BattleMaster, however much it might feel so from the inside. In fact, it's almost the opposite.
2) When in doubt, put yourself—as honestly as you can—in the shoes of the people on the other side. Would a reasonable, average player find what you are doing to them fun? Do they have any opportunity to interact with it, or is it just a way to destroy them without them having a chance to react meaningfully?
It's fine if a religion is the force behind some wars.
It's not fine if a religion gets realms totalling more than 1/3 of the continent to all act like allies.
There's gray area in between those two, in which it would depend more on the particular situation.
The general rules I hope people are taking to heart are
1) Controlling most of a continent is not a "win condition" for BattleMaster, however much it might feel so from the inside. In fact, it's almost the opposite.
2) When in doubt, put yourself—as honestly as you can—in the shoes of the people on the other side. Would a reasonable, average player find what you are doing to them fun? Do they have any opportunity to interact with it, or is it just a way to destroy them without them having a chance to react meaningfully?
44
Announcements / Current East Continent Event
« on: August 24, 2020, 10:46:22 PM »
As heralded by the RP events around the island for the past several days, changes are coming to the East Continent. By the nature of such changes, some people will gain, and others will lose. This is, to some extent, intended, as the reason for the changes is to improve the balance and overall fun.
Any loud wailing that the admins are just trying to hurt Realm X, or help Realm Y, will result in temporary account locks, and potentially the loss of positions. Such accusations of corruption are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. If you are interested in the specific details of why we made the choices we did, please ask respectfully. If you have specific criticisms of the changes we made, please state them concisely and respectfully and we will seek to address them in the same spirit.
We know that these changes will result in temporary frustration and struggles as people adapt, but we firmly believe that for the long-term health of the East Continent, these changes are necessary—and have largely been in planning for months or years.
Any loud wailing that the admins are just trying to hurt Realm X, or help Realm Y, will result in temporary account locks, and potentially the loss of positions. Such accusations of corruption are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. If you are interested in the specific details of why we made the choices we did, please ask respectfully. If you have specific criticisms of the changes we made, please state them concisely and respectfully and we will seek to address them in the same spirit.
We know that these changes will result in temporary frustration and struggles as people adapt, but we firmly believe that for the long-term health of the East Continent, these changes are necessary—and have largely been in planning for months or years.
45
BM General Discussion / Re: Lemon Fame 3
« on: August 23, 2020, 06:55:42 PM »Is the total still 51? I have found nothing on the Wiki or Forum to say otherwise.
Technically, it's 52, but one is not implemented.
Quote
There are 7 "noble" skills, so those last 6 can't be one for each.
Swordfighting
Jousting
Leadership
Trading
Bureaucracy
Oratory
Infiltration
Unless Trading doesn't get you one, since it doesn't do much?
Nope. There are not unique fame points associated with any individual skill.