Possible Game Updates Currently Being Tested

[Alex]

By player retention, you mean the ones who are either too stupid or too lazy to to get better at conventional warfare? If so then I understand why you'd lower the war mechanics to their level of mediocrity.

 

No, I mean new players. Not existing players.

 

Admit it, you had never thought about the necessity of answering either of these questions until they were asked because you're just making it up as you go.

 

Which isn't terribly shocking, but still, yowza.

 

I'm sorry I didn't create a perfect master plan for a game I created in high-school. In most cases it is a tweak, modify, add, cut as you go development process.

 

Not being able to know if someone has any nukes without doing an info-check is ridiculous.

 

If you're concerned about nukes getting spied away too fast (scripting) a decent compromise would be:

-A nuke cannot be spied during the turn it is built in

(or)

-Nukes are only publicly visible if the player with the nuke has less than 25 spies.

 

That's better feedback than what I usually get, and I will consider it.

 

Just so that no one thinks I'm crapping on Sheepy's new war system without any alternatives other than maintaining the current one, I'm gonna throw this out there.

 

Imo this new war system wouldn't be absolute crap if a few simple changes were made:

 

- making nukes and missiles not reduce any resistance;

- making ships cost 5 MAPs instead of 4 (which makes complete sense, since naval attacks are supposed to reduce more resistance than airstrikes).

 

Just these 2 suggestions wouldn't make the new war mechanics a total punishment to conventional warfare. Plus, the fact that ships would still reduce resistance would provide an interesting challenge to AAs who bet mostly on conventional warfare, since large navies would have a significant impact and would be tough to take down while the enemy still has a considerable amount of planes. I wouldn't even mind that the new war system's nuke beige and loot amount aspects stayed as Sheepy suggests. 

 

Thank you for your actual feedback, I will consider those suggestions. Though I'm far more partial to the second than the first - I still think people only lobbing missiles/nukes is easily countered by players using conventional warfare to quickly win the war.

 

It's just a silly change. It makes nukes into a weapon that cannot be countered, whatsoever. 

 

That's not true. You can still spy away nukes, and build a VDS to mitigate nuke damage. That said, in the real world, there really isn't a "counter" for nuclear weapons.

So how long until everything is hidden because people who know things have an unfair advantage?

 

Thank you for your constructive feedback.

[ArcKnox]

Why make it if there's 0% chance that you'll actually act on it.

[Kemal Ergenekon]

I won't read 6 pages of discussion, but correct me if I am wrong:

 

Ground Attack Immense Triumph Points per MAP 10/3 = 3.3333

Airstrike Immense Triumph Points per MAP 12/4 = 3

Naval Strike Immense Triumph Points per MAP 14/4 = 3.5

 

but

 

Fortify: Regain 10 for 3 MAP: Points per MAP 10/3 = 3.3333

 

Does this mean that we will NEVER win wars against an opponent that always fortifies?

[Auctor]

I won't read 6 pages of discussion, but correct me if I am wrong:

 

Ground Attack Immense Triumph Points per MAP 10/3 = 3.3333

Airstrike Immense Triumph Points per MAP 12/4 = 3

Naval Strike Immense Triumph Points per MAP 14/4 = 3.5

 

but

 

Fortify: Regain 10 for 3 MAP: Points per MAP 10/3 = 3.3333

 

Does this mean that we will NEVER win wars against an opponent that always fortifies?

Isn't the current meta not to beige opponents anyway? If the definition of "winning" is to achieve a beige, and fortify is a mechanic that forestalls beige in the same way only running airs or navy or CM's used to be, is that materially different?

[Kemal Ergenekon]

Isn't the current meta not to beige opponents anyway? If the definition of "winning" is to achieve a beige, and fortify is a mechanic that forestalls beige in the same way only running airs or navy or CM's used to be, is that materially different?

 

Are you dense?

 

The whole point of the new system is that when you win, you loot a shitload of resources and destroy 10% infra. With the fortify action restoring 10 points for 3 MAP, no one can *ever* beige the opponent and loot, effectively making looting impossible.

[Auctor]

But the cost of doing so is then to eat a full five days of damage *and* being staggered an additional five days without being able to restock in beige. I don't discount there might be some value to achieving quick beiges when just trying to grief an opponent in a single round, but it's not exactly a strategy that can't be worked around.

[Harrison Richardson]

Sheepy, you just admitted that you didn't consider a simple and logical consequence of the action you made.  It wasn't like I solved quantum physics.  You made a haphazard rules change, two people pointed out easily identifiable flaws, and boom -- you made quick, shoot-from-the-hip judgement calls on those issues too.  As if that was such a successful strategy.

 

Here's an idea: put down the shovel.  Stop digging.  Think through logically plans for the game.  As it is, this entire war update has been small patchwork attempts at fixing something that just wasn't very good to begin with (the proposed overhaul).  If you truly want a change, scrap it and try again.  

[Auctor]

As an aside, you're still able to see the ten people holding the most nukes and CM's through the leaderboard. Not sure if this is intentional.

[EliteCanada]

By player retention, you mean the ones who are either too stupid or too lazy to to get better at conventional warfare? If so then I understand why you'd lower the war mechanics to their level of mediocrity.

 

Improving war mechanics by making it dumb and reducing the impact of coordination and skill involved in conventional warfare, whose intricacy and required amount of effort can be rendered useless by nuke/missile lobbing muppets... Topkek.

 

You make this seem like a bad idea, but honestly it is logical. I enjoy this game and the community, and if it grows that's good. If there are ~500 players joining a week, but the overall amount is staying roughly the same or diminishing (however slight) things gotta change for dat hawt retention.

 

Game play change is good. Just because we're out of beta and alpha doesn't mean the game has to stay the same. When you play games like league, or over-watch they still have continuous and on-going balance changes. Is it sometimes because a strategy/team is too successful? Yes, but overall the changes are still good for the game itself as it leads to diversity. 

Edited December 9, 2016 by EliteCanada

[WISD0MTREE]

That's not true. You can still spy away nukes, and build a VDS to mitigate nuke damage. That said, in the real world, there really isn't a "counter" for nuclear weapons.

Assassinating members of the nuclear research team, limited strikes against reactor sites, and restricting access to any items which would be used to manufacture nuclear weapons have both been tried and worked (Libya, Syria). 

 

It would be interesting if attacking nuclear silos was an airstrike option. 

[Spooner]

 

 

That's not true. You can still spy away nukes, and build a VDS to mitigate nuke damage. That said, in the real world, there really isn't a "counter" for nuclear weapons.

 

You can't really spy away nukes if you need to do an info check first. That's a *huge* waste of resources if prices stay at they are for spy ops. Spying away nukes that we already know are there is barely worth it right now.

 

I don't consider building a project that blocks 20% of nukes to be an effective counter. It requires no skill or teamwork, and 20% is a pretty marginal difference for such a steep opportunity cost of a project slot.

 

In the real world there is a counter for nuclear weapons. Blockades, defense systems, destroying infrastructure, spy/hacking operations. At the very least, nations generally know when other nations have nuclear weapons, if we're going down the "real-world" route.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Spooner

[Kemal Ergenekon]

But the cost of doing so is then to eat a full five days of damage *and* being staggered an additional five days without being able to restock in beige. I don't discount there might be some value to achieving quick beiges when just trying to grief an opponent in a single round, but it's not exactly a strategy that can't be worked around.

 

False, the defeated eat the damage anyway. Also the beige duration is now down to 3 days, not 5. Try again when you get the facts straight.

[Alex]

Sheepy, you just admitted that you didn't consider a simple and logical consequence of the action you made.  It wasn't like I solved quantum physics.  You made a haphazard rules change, two people pointed out easily identifiable flaws, and boom -- you made quick, shoot-from-the-hip judgement calls on those issues too.  As if that was such a successful strategy.

 

Here's an idea: put down the shovel.  Stop digging.  Think through logically plans for the game.  As it is, this entire war update has been small patchwork attempts at fixing something that just wasn't very good to begin with (the proposed overhaul).  If you truly want a change, scrap it and try again.  

 

I overlooked the fact that Espionage operations offer an error message when you attempt to spy missiles/nukes, that's something that the test server exists for; to catch things like this. Unless you're talking about something else, in which that case you'll have to be more plain because it's not apparent to me.

 

Your line of thinking is entirely out of line with my own. I am not going to completely scrap the war system and re-do it. If I were to do that, I'd just let P&W sit as-is and make a new game. I'm tweaking things, making small changes, and generally improving the game little by little. That's what I have time to do, and frankly, that's what I enjoy doing.

 

False, the defeated eat the damage anyway. Also the beige duration is now down to 3 days, not 5. Try again when you get the facts straight.

 

It's actually 2 days.

[Kemal Ergenekon]

It's actually 2 days.

 

A quotation of your post shows that it was 3 days initially:

 

• Wars now have a system called 'resistance'. Each sides starts the war with 100 resistance, and resistance is reduced through every attack. When your opponent's resistance reaches 0, you take 25% of their money, 10% of each of their resources, and automatically destroys 10% of the infrastructure in each of their cities. They are sent to Beige, but for only 3 days. This is to add a more visual component to wars, and encourage people to want to win wars.

Also you still have the following on the *current* OP:

 

• When winning a war and sending an opponent to beige, if they are already beige you will not reset them back to 3 days, you will instead add 3 days to their beige time. This is a buff to players who are losing multiple wars.

 

 

Anyway, you didn't answer the concern regarding Fortify. Someone who fortifies can nullify any and all progress of the attacker.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Kemal Ergenekon

[Auctor]

False, the defeated eat the damage anyway. Also the beige duration is now down to 3 days, not 5. Try again when you get the facts straight.

It's extended out based on how many defeats they get. So assuming you aren't only beiging them 1v1 for some reason and they're eating 3 defeats, that ends up coming out to being time to rearm.

 

Now, what I was actually referring to is a scenario wherein a nation goes full turtle and forts up. They can't launch any attacks and in most cases they'll have their mil wiped because if they had a full mil, forgoing being able to do attacks for forting would be silly. So, their wars go the full five days, they don't get beiged, they get beat on for the full five days, and then since they never enter beige they can be staggered and attacked without having even so much as those two days to rearm. How exactly was fortifying beneficial? They didn't really save themselves that much damage unless they're absurdly large and 10% dmg is larger than being attacked for 3 extra days and they're open to continuous attack without ever being able to enter beige and getting any chance to gear back up.

 

So yes, it makes it more difficult for the attacker to force a victory, but it does so at substantial, likely crippling disadvantage to the defender.

[Spooner]

Has the "add 2/3 days to beige" thing been clarified yet? I'm curious if it's capped, or if it's stacking up to 8 times total.

[Kemal Ergenekon]

It's extended out based on how many defeats they get. So assuming you aren't only beiging them 1v1 for some reason and they're eating 3 defeats, that ends up coming out to being time to rearm.

 

Now, what I was actually referring to is a scenario wherein a nation goes full turtle and forts up. They can't launch any attacks and in most cases they'll have their mil wiped because if they had a full mil, forgoing being able to do attacks for forting would be silly. So, their wars go the full five days, they don't get beiged, they get beat on for the full five days, and then since they never enter beige they can be staggered and attacked without having even so much as those two days to rearm. How exactly was fortifying beneficial? They didn't really save themselves that much damage unless they're absurdly large and 10% dmg is larger than being attacked for 3 extra days and they're open to continuous attack without ever being able to enter beige and getting any chance to gear back up.

 

So yes, it makes it more difficult for the attacker to force a victory, but it does so at substantial, likely crippling disadvantage to the defender.

 

It doesn't "make it more difficult" to force a victory. It makes it impossible. The best points per MAP spent offensive action is naval immense triumphs at 3.5 per MAP. Since the defender can recover 3.33 per MAP using fortify, this means that for each MAP, the attacker can at most gain 0.166667 point advantage over the defender. You have 12 MAPs per day. 12 * 5 = 60. Add on top the initial MAPs and you get 66. 66 * 0.166667 = 11. 11 <<<<< 100. So, no, fortify makes it impossible to beige an enemy who does not want to be beiged. So it completely kills raids and whatever else Sheepy is trying to achieve here.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Kemal Ergenekon

[Mageofpie]

Nuke change is great. I'd bet a ton of money most the guys disagreeing are the same guys running scripts to insta-detect them as well. Probably also learn how to talk to the game admin lads, half of the posts in this thread directly insult Alex. I'd have deleted half of your accounts by now.

[Auctor]

It doesn't "make it more difficult" to force a victory. It makes it impossible. The best points per MAP spent offensive action is naval immense triumphs at 3.5 per MAP. Since the defender can recover 3.33 per MAP using fortify, this means that for each MAP, the attacker can at most gain 0.166667 point advantage over the defender. You have 12 MAPs per day. 12 * 5 = 60. Add on top the initial MAPs and you get 66. 66 * 0.166667 = 11. 11 <<<<< 100. So, no, fortify makes it impossible to beige an enemy who does not want to be beiged. So it completely kills raids and whatever else Sheepy is trying to achieve here.

It does so at the cost of a scorched earth tactic that sees the defender completely unable to fight back except to turtle up and hit fortify over and over. That's pretty balanced. Especially considering nations that make use of this tactic will be open to be staggered round after round and stand to lose most of not all of their infra in the attempt.

 

I can understand why not being able to make instant riches off of opponents might be annoying, but given the fluidity of foreign aid in this game already and the increased incentive to hide your stuff through various means that upping the loot haul to crazy levels will create, I question how much more there will be to loot.

[Alex]

Has the "add 2/3 days to beige" thing been clarified yet? I'm curious if it's capped, or if it's stacking up to 8 times total.

 

It's +2, and it stacks. It's not capped.

 

It doesn't "make it more difficult" to force a victory. It makes it impossible. The best points per MAP spent offensive action is naval immense triumphs at 3.5 per MAP. Since the defender can recover 3.33 per MAP using fortify, this means that for each MAP, the attacker can at most gain 0.166667 point advantage over the defender. You have 12 MAPs per day. 12 * 5 = 60. Add on top the initial MAPs and you get 66. 66 * 0.166667 = 11. 11 <<<<< 100. So, no, fortify makes it impossible to beige an enemy who does not want to be beiged. So it completely kills raids and whatever else Sheepy is trying to achieve here.

 

You're right, and that's fine. In that scenario it would be just like the current situation - you get to beat on someone for the full 5 days of war, except in this case they're not even attacking you back. I think most people would be pleased with that outcome, making only using Fortify a terrible strategy in war.

[Alex]

I'm scratching the hidden missiles/nukes change on the test server, and replacing it with a restriction on spying away missiles and nukes. The restriction is that you won't be able to spy a missile/nuke the same day that it was built - so in the case of a double buy, you'd be able to get 1/2 but not both. And this will prevent missiles/nukes from being spied away as soon as they're built.

[Spooner]

I don't mind the fortify-not-being-able-to-lose. You could just hit them on the ground over-and-over-and-over again with soldiers for cheap. Destroying infra, stealing money, and killing improvements on the cheap. Fortifying over and over is a stupid strategy -- and one that I expect our enemies will use. If anything it keeps them from lobbing missiles at me.

 

It's +2, and it stacks. It's not capped.

 

Not super happy about it beige being able to last from 10-16 days, but since beige "hurts" more than before I'll deal with it.

 

 

I'm scratching the hidden missiles/nukes change on the test server, and replacing it with a restriction on spying away missiles and nukes. The restriction is that you won't be able to spy a missile/nuke the same day that it was built - so in the case of a double buy, you'd be able to get 1/2 but not both. And this will prevent missiles/nukes from being spied away as soon as they're built.

 

This is a better compromise overall, pleased with it. Nice work.

[Auctor]

Yeah exactly. Especially with not being able to do fortify after you run an attack. It only really makes sense to do if you're sitting on a large resource cache and don't care if you lose all your infra and money.

[EliteCanada]

Assassinating members of the nuclear research team, limited strikes against reactor sites, and restricting access to any items which would be used to manufacture nuclear weapons have both been tried and worked (Libya, Syria). 

 

It would be interesting if attacking nuclear silos was an airstrike option. 

 

Asinine example. Clearly he was referring to when super powers use nuclear weapons. Gl with counter playing nukes if Russia or the USA choose to lob them.

 

 

Nuke change is great. I'd bet a ton of money most the guys disagreeing are the same guys running scripts to insta-detect them as well. Probably also learn how to talk to the game admin lads, half of the posts in this thread directly insult Alex. I'd have deleted half of your accounts by now.

 

Idk about the nuke change or most things mechanical and to the exact extent it would impact shit, or about deleting accounts based on this, but yeah proper respect clearly lacks.

 

Edit: repeated shit. 

Edited December 10, 2016 by EliteCanada

[Auctor]

If we're going to go all real world example police on a game, we're all going to look like morons.