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Killing the irrelevant jab


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Many times we hear people claiming shitposters, trolls, and people who make callouts are irrelevant salty folk.

Now, whether or not they're irrelevant doesn't matter.

What does it mean to be relevant vs irrelevant?

The distinction doesn't matter.

If you're "relevant" and in charge, well bang up job you did congrats. More than ever, people hate the political atmosphere of P/W and your majesty's shit-tier reign protecting the status quo.

So yes, if you're relevant, you're one of the people killing the game. Your leadership has been shit.

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7 hours ago, Lucifer Morningstar said:

If you're "relevant" and in charge, well bang up job you did congrats. More than ever, people hate the political atmosphere of P/W and your majesty's shit-tier reign protecting the status quo.

So yes, if you're relevant, you're one of the people killing the game. Your leadership has been shit.

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Well, the people are the top are still the people holding all the cards. The game is stagnant because those people want it to be stagnant. They don't want to take risks and try new things, and it's miserable for the rest of us... but they're still at the top.

That's kinda like saying that the rich man is shit because he's old money and only works a few hours a week, and you're better because you work an honest 9 to 5 for 40 hours a week. However, you're still working 9 to 5 for 40 hours a week making 20-60K and he's still rich doing almost nothing.

So, yeah, the guys at the top, the 'relevant' people are making the game miserable... but they're still rich and you're just a member of Roz Wei.

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37 minutes ago, Thalmor said:

That's kinda like saying that the rich man is shit because he's old money and only works a few hours a week, and you're better because you work an honest 9 to 5 for 40 hours a week. However, you're still working 9 to 5 for 40 hours a week making 20-60K and he's still rich doing almost nothing.

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I would term the irrelevant as inactive people who either won't or don't know how to get involved with things.

 

Otherwise your relevance can be chalked up to your actions as long as you have somewhat of an alliance backing you. The problem is, every single alliance in the game right now has no inkling of democratic process or member involvement. If they do, they're a freebooting pirate anarchy. So we have the vast majority of people out there disillusioned with a boring game going inactive, then we have the people who consolidated their power in the name of efficiency and opsec complaining because there's the same handful of people making the big calls and shockingly none of them will change their minds on anything.

 

We need new blood. We need new systems.

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7 hours ago, Holton said:

I would term the irrelevant as inactive people who either won't or don't know how to get involved with things.

 

Otherwise your relevance can be chalked up to your actions as long as you have somewhat of an alliance backing you. The problem is, every single alliance in the game right now has no inkling of democratic process or member involvement. If they do, they're a freebooting pirate anarchy. So we have the vast majority of people out there disillusioned with a boring game going inactive, then we have the people who consolidated their power in the name of efficiency and opsec complaining because there's the same handful of people making the big calls and shockingly none of them will change their minds on anything.

 

We need new blood. We need new systems.

What we need are mechanics that enable and encourage the behaviors that we want to see. Right now, fortify can be used to compete against anyone, but other than that (or freebooting pirate anarchy) the mechanics preclude and discourage any risks.

3 hours ago, Partisan said:

-snip-


You're mostly right, but the fault isn't really in either the members or the leadership, because both are victims of the mechanics. Even if the leaders want to be active and take risks, AND the members want the same, then it still doesn't necessarily happen if the mechanics make the risks too great and defeat too crippling. Without a mechanical option to avoid permafarming, the only viable strategy is to gather alliances with or at least avoid war with who and what you can, and destroy who and what you can't, never allowing anyone or anything to grow outside of that lest they do the same thing to you.

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2 hours ago, Sketchy said:

The other issue is the mechanics are heavily geared towards stagnancy rather than action.

People seem to forget just how costly large scale wars are in general.

The last war for example, IQ took 111bn in damages, and EMC took 69bn in damages. This is just infrastructure damage, it doesn't even account for the (rough guesstimate) ~100bn in resource costs, which under the market post econ update, is probably worth 200-300bn now.

This means it takes months to prepare and/or recover from a large scale conflict. Since you can't fight without resources, this imposes a pretty rigid mechanical restriction in general on how often an alliance can engage in global war generally.

Add to this the recent econ update, which game-wide reduced the overall production of resources whilst simultaneously bumping prices, and you have a resource shortage situation that will get exponentially worse over time, resulting in increased resource scarcity and wars that happen further and further apart. 

This has the natural effect of incentivizing any rational leader, even the most gung ho pro war leaders, to pick and choose their wars carefully rather than just hit anyone anytime they feel like it.

 

If anything, I think you're understating the risks involved. Any faction that loses will mechanically lose more resources, both in absolute and proportional terms, than the winning faction. This obviously results in the next war being even more stacked in that factions' favor, so the risk of losing wars means that going to war is to be avoided at almost all costs. Mercy is therefore not an option, there can only be total annihilation. No dominant force can afford to allow the potential for rebuilding, it's just the way the game works. That's why mechanics have to exist that offer alternatives for both winners and losers than game-ending stagnation.

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32 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

If anything, I think you're understating the risks involved. Any faction that loses will mechanically lose more resources, both in absolute and proportional terms, than the winning faction. This obviously results in the next war being even more stacked in that factions' favor, so the risk of losing wars means that going to war is to be avoided at almost all costs. Mercy is therefore not an option, there can only be total annihilation. No dominant force can afford to allow the potential for rebuilding, it's just the way the game works. That's why mechanics have to exist that offer alternatives for both winners and losers than game-ending stagnation.

Actually, in general the resource cost is larger on the winning side than the losing side. The losing side will spend more resources rebuying troops than actually using them, and the winning side needs to maintain their control. The winning side tends to use large amounts of gasoline and munitions while the losing side tends to use large amounts of steel and alum, but proportionally and from a cost standpoint the winning side uses more.

The cost is still obviously much larger to the losing side since they take the brunt of the infrastructure damage as well as the larger income loss hit, but the difference is far less of an important factor than the general total cost, and how long it takes to recuperate or plan for that cost, to the overall stagnancy.

Also your example ignores politics which nullifies this quite a bit. People can and often do leave or join a side, potentially skewing the balance one way or the other. Your example only really applies to curbstomps, large scale wars don't have this problem as much. Even if this doesn't change which side wins, it changes who the winners and losers are on an individual level. That and lots of alliances sit on the sidelines during war, especially these days.

That example is less a fault of mechanics and more a fault of leaders and members. There SHOULD be an advantage gained from winning over losing, that mechanic is working as intended.

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44 minutes ago, Sketchy said:

Actually, in general the resource cost is larger on the winning side than the losing side. The losing side will spend more resources rebuying troops than actually using them, and the winning side needs to maintain their control. The winning side tends to use large amounts of gasoline and munitions while the losing side tends to use large amounts of steel and alum, but proportionally and from a cost standpoint the winning side uses more.

The cost is still obviously much larger to the losing side since they take the brunt of the infrastructure damage as well as the larger income loss hit, but the difference is far less of an important factor than the general total cost, and how long it takes to recuperate or plan for that cost, to the overall stagnancy.

Also your example ignores politics which nullifies this quite a bit. People can and often do leave or join a side, potentially skewing the balance one way or the other. Your example only really applies to curbstomps, large scale wars don't have this problem as much. Even if this doesn't change which side wins, it changes who the winners and losers are on an individual level. That and lots of alliances sit on the sidelines during war, especially these days.

That example is less a fault of mechanics and more a fault of leaders and members. There SHOULD be an advantage gained from winning over losing, that mechanic is working as intended.

Perhaps, but how long has it been since the last war that wasn't a curbstomp, or devolved into one? And how often do people make the informed decision to join the losing side, or to miss out on looting opportunities? Politics and player behaviors certainly could avoid the problems of unstable equilibrium, but in order to work that requires at least a simple majority of players to make counterintuitive, and from a their own personal standpoint irrational, decisions on a regular basis. And since there is an advantage to be gained from winning over losing, as you point out, then how can anyone justify a decision to give up that advantage? The players aren't responsible for keeping the game from stagnation and death, they're responsible for their sides' interests. If they shirk on that responsibility, even in the interests of game balance, then they leave themselves critically vulnerable to those that don't choose to put game balance ahead of their own advantage.

Without the tools or options to avoid being farmed, curbstomps result in the losing side having no options but to feed, delete, or blob with another side (often the one that stomped them). This ultimately forces consolidation and there being fewer sides that each take fewer risks, instead of enabling more individual sides that take more risks.

Arrgh is the exception that proves my point; they dedicate themselves to being wholly militarized and hiding their bank regularly and consistently, and they alone have consistently survived the risks of engaging wealthier sides without having the benefit of fortification.

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9 hours ago, Partisan said:

So if you are in a do-nothing alliance with a do-nothing leader and preach change, walk your talk and either become a leader yourself to show the way, or throw your weight behind an ambitious leader who is not risk-averse. Anything short of that makes you a hypocrite.

 

 

Your move, Shifty.

I've been like FA banned so like I can't command legions anymore.

Joined Roz Wei because it's the only AA to randomly raid other AAs recently and it's been controversial. I'm definitely pro causing mayhem and rogue-ing people.

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23 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Perhaps, but how long has it been since the last war that wasn't a curbstomp, or devolved into one? And how often do people make the informed decision to join the losing side, or to miss out on looting opportunities?

Well the context when most people refer to a lack of wars is generally global wars, and with the exception of maybe Papers please, there has never really been a complete "curbstomp" in a global war. The last true global war was 9 months ago, all previous wars before that were 3-4 months apart at a time.

As for the idea of joining the losing side, whilst its true most alliances join the winning side more often than the losing side, who lost the last war isn't always an indicator towards who will win the next one and there is plenty of cases of people joining the opposite side. And looting opportunities isn't really a factor running through the head of 90% of alliances so idk where you pulled that one from.

34 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Politics and player behaviors certainly could avoid the problems of unstable equilibrium, but in order to work that requires at least a simple majority of players to make counterintuitive, and from a their own personal standpoint irrational, decisions on a regular basis. And since there is an advantage to be gained from winning over losing, as you point out, then how can anyone justify a decision to give up that advantage?

That assumes everyone has the exact same priorities which they don't. Some alliances wish to grow, others wish to fight, some wish to be the most powerful etc. In general you can break the game  down into two different groups, those who avoid damage in order to advance another goal, and those who advance another goal to avoid damage. If avoiding damage is the ends not the means than you are a pixelhugger.

My point being, there is plenty of rational reasons to sacrifice an advantage, it depends entirely what your end goal is. Unfortunately this is a wider issue in the game, many alliances have no purpose other than to exist. If your only goal is to exist, then you have no pragmatic reason to go to war at all, and plenty of reasons to act like a pixel hugger.

39 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Without the tools or options to avoid being farmed, curbstomps result in the losing side having no options but to feed, delete, or blob with another side (often the one that stomped them). This ultimately forces consolidation and there being fewer sides that each take fewer risks, instead of enabling more individual sides that take more risks.

Curbstomps are not a common occurence in global wars and therefore aren't really relevant to the subject. Its not really that hard to avoid a curbstomp in general. Your using examples that don't apply to the conversation.

43 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Arrgh is the exception that proves my point; they dedicate themselves to being wholly militarized and hiding their bank regularly and consistently, and they alone have consistently survived the risks of engaging wealthier sides without having the benefit of fortification.

I'm not sure how Arrgh proves your point, Arrgh isn't relevant to the topic at hand either. Arrgh is an outlier, their entire playstyle relies on them being an outlier. If everyone started playing like Arrgh, it would invalidate their playstyle completely because all your prospective targets would also be raiders. Arrghs economic viability relies on the stagnancy of other alliances. 

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