Author Topic: Monster Problems  (Read 123213 times)

byrdcr9

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #225: November 22, 2016, 09:06:12 PM »
Seems to me like the fringe realms need to refocus themselves. If greater density is required, realms on the outside should either move or refocus their efforts and forget their westernmost regions.

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Chenier

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #226: November 22, 2016, 09:10:22 PM »
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?
« Last Edit: November 22, 2016, 09:24:05 PM by Chenier »
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Zakilevo

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #227: November 22, 2016, 09:45:08 PM »
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?

That is not the point though. I am by no means a fan of it either. However, when people are confined to a small area where they are right next to each other and can't destroy each other (peasant militias will prevent realms from being destroyed) you will have more fun as you will be forced to fight your neighbours constantly. Sure you will take a break every now and then but you will learn to play in a new way where wars are not about destroying your enemies. Instead it will be about exchanging 1 region at most per war. At least that is the theory.

Chenier

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #228: November 22, 2016, 10:21:17 PM »
Different players have different needs. I love fighting the monsters over and over, some find this dull. Some would love to have wars that don't seek annihilations, others would find wars over a mere region or two to be unmotivating, the stakes being too low. There are several wars where total annihilation of the enemy was amply justified, but people were angry at how hard it was to achieve. Just as there are many where realms died seemingly too easily.

And for the record, I really like the idea of making monster spawns dependent on density. The biggest problem I can see with it though are at the choke points.
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Konrad

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #229: November 22, 2016, 11:59:24 PM »
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.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2016, 12:02:50 AM by Konrad »

Chenier

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #230: November 23, 2016, 01:31:41 AM »
To be fair, though, those realms were frontier realms when they were created or settled. I know there has been a large break since then... but still. I was in D'Hara for a huge chunk of its existence, since its founding, and it was a frontier realm for almost all of that time, until the west just got completely blocked out, I'd say. Even when the west was wholly colonized and the rogues were no more of a concern, there was still the Zuma to come and stomp us, or at the very least threaten us, every now and then.

Candiels was the site of numerous battles. It took a fairly long time for Madina to first colonize it, and then maintain it. And when the rogues were no longer a concern... Aurvandil. The time Candiels was part of Madina accounts for a minority of its history, I would reckon.

Astrum played a huge role in the initial colonization attempts, it's fought its share of rogues.

I would say that PvE is very much part of those realms' DNA. Though the problem with turnover is that probably very few of those players were even there for any of it. I know when I recreated my account, I looked at the nobles of D'Hara, and barely recognized the place. These realms were created specifically to be border realms, and their unique geography should make this fairly apparent, but unfortunately perhaps most of their nobles had nothing to do with any of that.
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Sharpspeare

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #231: November 23, 2016, 01:39:58 AM »
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.

Very true. Being forced out of a realm for this sort of reason isn't fun. And it sort of feels like we are being punished for circumstances that are beyond our control.
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Victor C

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #232: November 23, 2016, 02:23:54 AM »
Propose a better solution then.

This is the only idea that is realistic at the moment.

The core issue still stands that the map is too big for everyone to freely expand. No matter what happens, people are going to be drastically effected to fix this.

If you resist the change by going against the whole point of the fix, then you should expect to be very unhappy, that's what Zakky is saying and unless people either realize this and stop or the people who are constantly trying to expand are killed or overtaken (basically prevented from expanding) this process is not going to end anytime soon. Either the players will commit suicide because they're too stubborn or they'll figure out how to make the game fun together (the way this game is supposed to work).

Once again, propose a better fix that is realistic with the people we have or figure out how to make the process smoother so we can move beyond this phase.
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Chenier

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #233: November 23, 2016, 03:52:00 AM »
I did make some proposals? I can add a few more...

1) limit the number of rogues that can be present on the continent at any given time
2) limit the combat effectiveness of very large hordes
3) make sure the rogues move in random direction. While this may essentially be undoing a recent patch, having all rogues converge to 3 choke points makes them steamroll anything standing there, and beyond.
4) make rogues tend towards equally spreading themselves over multiple regions instead of congregate.
5) make rogues more cowardly: if defeated in a region, the units should be more prone to moving away, instead of rallying
6) make rogues unable (again) to cross sea lanes?

I like that the rogues are there, that they are challenging, and that they scale with density, though. I wouldn't personally want to see that removed.
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Konrad

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #234: November 23, 2016, 04:06:53 AM »
I doubt that the player base will rise much, if ever, again. With that being the case, two islands is too much. Either close off West island or put so many stationary rogues in every region that players can't go there again. Just stop this endless funnel of undead that results in the EXACT same gameplay for these players every day. Unless you're happy with the majority of these nobles sitting in Candiels or Port Raviel or Eidulb for the next however many years until they give up, make the west a hard stop so we can refocus on eastern politics, which are still alive and interesting.

Zakilevo

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #235: November 23, 2016, 04:34:17 AM »
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 NOT 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
« Last Edit: November 24, 2016, 03:05:18 AM by Zakky »

GundamMerc

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #236: November 23, 2016, 09:36:32 AM »
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

The issue is Dwilight's density problem was never an issue of too few players before the monster invasion, it was an issue of boring realms. So people tried to solve a problem that was never there, instead of making the problem realms more interesting. Also, your points about expansion regarding Dwilight are moot, because that has never been the issue. Even when SA triumvirate alliance was at its peak in power, they had little to no influence over the other half of the map. The sheer size of Dwilight is what made it an enjoyable map. Even when most of the map was colonized, things were still fun and fluid.

I swear, your posts are full of some of the most idiotic, backwards logic doublespeak I've ever seen come out of someone's mouth. You say things that fly straight in the face of proper game design, make absolutely no sense to implement from either a mechanical or psychological viewpoint, and are surprised when people point out the myriad of holes in this "logic" you use.

User has been warned for this post.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2016, 03:20:23 PM by Victor C »

Zakilevo

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #237: November 23, 2016, 10:49:53 AM »
Thanks for giving some constructive criticisms Gustav. You are as objective as ever and I always value your opinions. Good that I am not in charge of game balance.

I am sorry. Are boring realms devs fault? No. Realms being boring is 100% player's fault. Devs provide features but it is the responsibility of each and every player to either create fun with those features or enjoy fun provided by others.

Here are what some people believe at the moment
1) Less regions for players to increase the density
+with 3:1 noble per region ratio, realms should be more compact. With more nobles in each realm, people will communicate more.
-Getting to 3:1 ratio through monsters will make people leave out of frustration. This could be really bad since people will constantly leave and regions required to reach the ratio will also be reduced making more realms lose more regions starting the cycle again until only those who will not leave no matter what. At this point, I doubt it will be that fun.

Method of achieving this at the moment: Monsters to hammer people until they either fight to the end to lose their realms or go somewhere before they get completely overrun. Maybe not as many people will quit during the process. If you disagree with this method, how would you achieve the higher density? Let's not forget players can bring more players into end this monster invasion quickly as well.

2) More realms close to each other + peasant militias to prevent their destruction
+wars will mostly happen between your direct neighbours making things quite fast. You will travel 2 days at most to reach your neighbour then 2 days back to refit. Rinse and repeat constantly.
+no realm death = no rage quitters maybe
-short distance wars are tiring. Usually requires people to stay active for longer. Asking such high activity in the current state may not be the best. Fun wars could possibly attract people enough to stay active.
-eventually people will get sick of fighting their neighbours and will just ally with them. Then what? Fight your neighbour's neighbour?

Method: Maybe some realms will spare dying realms their cities so they could come north but that is highly doubtful. Most realms will try to integrate other nobles into their own realms with promises that will take a long time to come true.

Personally, I do not know what is the best way to make people move up north and make realms stay close to each other rather than have to spread across the whole map like they have now. Just making Madina and Fissoa move further north would help the situation a lot.

If I had an option - obviously my previous idea of forcing realms won't work -, I would have instead just reduced gold and food in the western border regions and moved those to east to make eastern regions a lot more attractive. Instead of fight and die or flee, it might be better to stay very very poor or migrate east in search of richer lands. Do it one region at a time every week maybe. People can still stay but regions won't produce enough gold and food to make people want to stay. Maybe this is just another horrible idea.

But one thing is for certain. Until we have enough players to fill the gap, realms need to stay more tightly. Yeah sure it won't make Dwilight feel as large as before but if monsters are gone and people are allowed to recolonize all the cities, people will just try to stay as far away from other realms as possible. That is not the solution with the current noble count of 195 or so. Areas must be limited but ice age or pushing people with monsters isn't the way to go. Maybe blocking the western lands with monsters is okay but pushing them into east doesn't feel like a good solution.

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #238: November 23, 2016, 01:40:16 PM »
Well it does seem that the plan is to drive players away from Dwilight. When I took over in Madina there were hardly any players in the realm. 2 or three. It took time but we built up the population mainly due to the closure of other continents. Most of the players in the realm have worked hard to build something of the realm. They are invested in it. You can't just say sorry but you have to go find somewhere else to live and start over. I understand the cold eyed logic you are using but Madina, Fissoa, D'Hara, all the realms have a rich history which matters to players. I'm sure Barca was the same before the decision was made to wipe them off the map.

I have shared the forum post with players on Madina and the consensus is that if they are forced out of Madina they will either pause their character, deleted them or move to another realm. No one wants to start over with a new realm. I enjoy being on the frontier and fighting creatures that populate the west but not when your entire lives are made up of defending your holding constantly attacked by ever increasing hordes. When we first started expanding the hordes were easily manageable but what we are experiencing now reminds me of when the monsters first started to rise in great numbers in the west. When Madina is destroyed the players will disappear as well which is sad because this was the first continent I joined and I have some great memories here. The continent is no longer fun. Quite the opposite.

The decisions being made since the cataclysm in the west seem very mathematical. Unfortunately many players don't find the enjoyment for this game in mathematics but in roleplay and atmosphere.


Chenier

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Re: Monster Problems
« Reply #239: November 23, 2016, 02:12:30 PM »
If monsters were unable to cross channels, once again, then Madina, D'Hara, and Astrum's survival would not longer be at stakes, just their expansion into Candiels, Paisly, and Eidulb.

There'd just be the issue of Avernus's land crossing. But unless the code intentionally tells the monsters "go east, guys!" (which it might, but shouldn't be hard to change), wouldn't be all that much of an issue. First off, there's Westgard in the way that tackles on 10k-30k hordes almost daily, seriously denting anything heading North-East, and secondly... would monsters reaching Avernus really be that much of an issue? Avernus lacks the history of Astrum, D'Hara, and Madina. As does Arnor. And that quasi-island is a perfect monster killing ground: one entry on both sides containing a large landmass to diffuse any force that breaks through with a ton of fortifiable locations. I don't expect much monsters to be able to make it past the meatgrinders of Westgard and Nifel's quasi-island combined, as long as the code doesn't intentionally seek to make this happen.
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