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Back to PvP basics?

We all know, that this game is PvP based and there are 2 politics to chose from. This also means it's not meant for pure individual play, although it also provides individual aspects.

However, by continous rebalancing between the 2 individual politics and between the accumulation of individual powers in alliances, the Player versus Player aspect transformed into Alliance versus Alliance.
If the rebalancing continues the way it goes now, i fear this will result in a game collapsing under it's own endless rebalancing, driving players out of the game or driving them to make bigger (united) alliances ending up in a "cold war" status quo between the Despot Camp and the Collect Camp.

Or it may even end up in a division of politics, played on 2 different maps.

So I asked myself, what if this could be turned around. Is there something that can be changed, sothat the players are encouraged to play a more PvP based role and make alliances a less important factor, than it has now.

This is the rough outline I have in mind to achieve this:

The same way the number of towns limits endless growth by corruption, a similar rule can be applied to attackers/defenders caused by miscommunication. Having too many commanders will cause inefficiency in giving orders to the troops.
So, if you attack/defend with 2 players (heroes), nothing will be changed, but for every next player on either side, there will be a X % penalty to the damage attackers/defenders make. Maybe 10% is a good start to try this out. Even a Y % penalty from friendly fire could be added, for every extra attacker/defender above 3 players.

Off course, this should not be implemented without downgrading all kinds of tweaks that are now implemented, with the purpose to compensate for the massive attacks we saw in A5.
Perhaps even the defense bonus for collect may be less extreme for example.

Still players from attacking alliance can coordinate in sending wave after wave to attack and players from a defending alliance can call in fresh reinforcements anytime they like. But there may be more time to act/react and the outcome may become more unpredictable.

Perhaps I’m on a wrong track and the changes would be huge, but in general I think this game could become a more PvP and less AvA kind of game. The central role of the individual player will be more important and also smaller alliances may have a better chance to survive.

Please share your thoughts with me on this and point out, where you think I’m wrong or what I may have overlooked.

7 years ago Quote
7 years ago Quote

There is nothing bad in recurring rebalances. The game evolves and so do the players. Players uncover new ways to play which may uncover weak spots of the game which needs to be addressed. Even the most popular online games do balancing tweaks for as long as the game lives (being played actively).

Back in the days few played Despotism and attacks were limited to stone age units and maximum wall and towers could be destroyed and it was one kind of a balance, then as new ages were introduced, it required review. Later when players started to actively use catapults and other destructive units it she some light on how those units can be used and we polished the rough ages. Addition of Medieval Age and Renaissance made similar effects. Same happened with active usage of artifacts. They were added a long time ago but only much later they were used so actively that it affectied overall game balance that needed addressing from our side. Similar things happened about other things, i.e. town capturing.

The story with alliances is similar as well. Back in the days alliances were mostly just group chats. Later people started to use simultaneous attacks more and more, form complex relationships and so on, this forced tweaks from our side. Now defensive alliances emerging and we need to react and add features which will make defensive alliances as vialbe as attacking ones.

In the future I am sure there will be a lot of similar situations too - new ages, new game politics, new diplomacy configurations, like utilization of vassality to manage multi-alliance configurations over multiple continents when there will be a lot of players, and so on.

People who are afraid of changes and balance tweaks should either overcome their fears and accepts the always evolving nature of the game or quit online multiplayer games complete, because pretty much all MMO games are constantly updated and rebalanced.

7 years ago Quote
7 years ago Quote