Declaring War suggestion

I have to say I'm glad that this discussion is even happening. It's a step in the right direction. I don't know what the answers are, but I'm glad the questions are being asked. If you don't know, Debswillow is my mom so I will probably keep in touch with this game and may come back in a later alpha if things are more my speed. 

To those of you that think I was instigating attacks: I was. But only after I was already attacked. After my 3rd town was taken out, I started border building with town names that would incite other alliances. I wanted to have some fun. So 'Come At Me Bro' was definitely intended to irritate, though I knew that's all it would do. I could be (and was) squished like a bug.

I don't know what alliances everyone belongs to, so I can't say for everyone, but I was never asked about anything. Maybe I wasn't in the right alliance, maybe I should have tried solo. Who knows? I do know that if someone had asked, I would have gladly let them build on my borders to get where they wanted to go. I didn't care about expansion. I just wanted to play.

Is this session 3 months old already?  If not then the last statement does not hold any water. 

Your hero may be 3 months but mine is not. I did not start at the beginning of alpha and had to restart hero many times before finding a place that was not wanted by anyone else.

I said the Alpha stage is 3 months old not my hero.  :-) 

saepe in errore versans, numquam animi pendens

Another factor that makes players targets to warrior type players in this game is the lack of defense they have. Instead of using all of the tools that the devs have given us all to use for defense, they only build what is required in the tutorial most of the time. I have personally asked players why they do not build units to defend with better, they reply with "It add too much population and losing too much culture" a big fact is almost all collect type players hardly ever build a large army. To them having a level 10 military building in each town is a large army. 

I have also witnessed MANY players using only towers to defend, I am guessing they feel the towers will do all of the defensive work and they hide the rest of their units. And to top that off, a lot of alliances never reinforce their members, or, reinforce with something silly like a group of animals.

Point is, this is a multiplayer competitive game no matter how you look at it, and when warrior type players know you have no defenses then you will be an easy target no matter what. Not all of us warrior type players do this but there are a nice handful that will target you because they know you are just easy. 

And this is not directed to new players, I have seen players doing these same things that have been here much longer than I have been. So a little advice would be to actually work together with your alliance members, dont just join an alliance to gain numbers and never help each other. You literally have so many defense tools sitting right here in the game already that a single collective player could actually wipe out an attacking army of 6+ heros, trust me, i have done it myself under despot!

If you make attacks hard and expensive for these warriors they will not come back, very simple. Use the tools, reinforce each other with REAL armies, use your hero and your hero stats to help gain a boost for your defenses. There are just way too many defense tools to not be able to defend, and to the ones that are going to say "well i am 2+ ages behind how can i defend" surely your alliance has much more advanced heros and again, they need to help you.

If your alliance does not help you then find another, put in your help to them as well. Work together, this is not a SOLO game.

Slightly philosophical questions, but how do we know that this situation is a problem at all?

Are the players complaining of being wiped an actual majority, or a vocal minority? We have read many times the anecdotes of new players being wiped, but do they actually represent the bulk of new players?

How do we define whether war or defense is too strong or weak? Ask different players, and you may get different answers.

These questions can only be answered by statistics and numbers, which the devs can get. I don't think players are the best judge here.

But those town names even had me wanting to come for a visit :)

Not meant critically, but I honestly don't understand the proportions or measurements in cases like these. To me (hence subjective), this sounds like if I showed someone the finger in r/l, they reply by breaking (or attempting to) all fingers of both of my hands. But not only do they bring along their gang to form a circle so that nobody else can come to aid, but the gang does most of the finger breaking, while the person who was originally offended kind of watches from the sideline?

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For me, the "problem" is and has been that there are a lot of written/unwritten rules and perspectives in and between different groups of players. It seems these have been established over time along with somewhat personal relations and groups of people forming a suitable playstyle for themselves. Which is fine and understandable. However, for a new(ish) player, it's a) not so easy to gain insight into all of these rules/views/playstyles, and b) even if they do, they might come to the conclusion that they might not like the game because of that. Not because of actual content or actual game tools, but because of what they see as limitations created by other players.

While I currently enjoy exploring the above, I am honestly not sure if I'd want to continue playing like that for let's say another 2 alphas. And it's certainly making me rather hesitant to spend money. Personally, I'd like to see the game opening up to a quite larger audience, and I'd also like see more possibilities of PvP (regardless of players being alliance members or not).

The problem is that the game is too small. There aren't even that many alliances. According to the rankings (all time), only 12 alliances have 10 towns or more. Even if you choose alliances at random to declare war on, you'll end up with similar wars all the time.

This.

Until the game will grow and have more players, top attacker alliances should be careful about attacking others, because if they attack too much, too many people will quit and top attackers will be left alone, got bored and quit too. I have been thinking about ways to solve this problem, motivating warriros to attack each other (war victory, rage), protecting peaceful players better (extended novice protection, towers power up), but it doesn't help, I don't see an easy solution which would suit both sides. I don't want to have peaceful players to be wipded too soon, because people would become frustrated and leave, yet I don't want to weaken warriors too much. because they will become bored and leave too.

I doubt war victory motivates anyone, simply because it just cant be achieved, surely not without cooperating targets...  Defensive abilities have been increased thru the roof, attacking anyone above their 'age' even with much bigger army, who has minimum defenses would be wiped easily ... heck - with mediocre defenses a single coll/republic player can do a lot of damage to 5-10 attackers with huge armies even above its own age, and with best defenses wipe out any incoming attack of entire alliance whatsoever.... even alone if smart enough...  but surely with the help of reinforcements.

The amount of stripes needed to max out the trophy hall ridiculos, the requirements for certain trophies even more...   even if we would get stripes for attacking an equal age target, im afraid anyone pursueing war victory would still fail miserably...  honestly, i doubt it could be done even if 'sessions' last 6 years instead of 6 months.

The whole concept of war victory needs some tweaking, have players brainstorming for ideas perhaps...

Perhaps stripes and trophies could be earned elsewhere too, not exclusively from players - for example, single-cell npc-castles popping on the map here and there, defended by hundreds of dragons, sages and enchanted towers and lvl100 wall...;) , requireing huge efforts of coordinated attacks from entire alliances...

For now, once storyline and quests are finished, fighting over borders and globals of alliance members is done, all that is left for despots is destruction of random targets... not that we necessarily want to wipe anyone, but its either that, or pack our things and wait for the next alpha... (building a wonder each time is too boring... no, thanks)

I think Savi had a very good idea ...:-)

Like I said when you ask us about new locations, currently I've finished all the locations and all the quests in Karfaree. So, nothing else to do that picking up random targets on the map. We are trying to do only only 1 or 2 attacks by day, no more, as you insisted on the fact that lot of peoples are complaining and threat to leave the game :-(  Is not what we, despot players we want for sure ....But the point is we need to send our armies out, is our main reason as despot players. Personal rankings as attacker and alliance rankings in the main categories are today the only motivations for most of the despots players  ...Which means destruction and again destruction in order to get those attacks points. Nothing else to do ... and still 3 more months to play :-(

 Is obvious that the War Victory has no interest in actual form even accepting that we get stripes by cooperating with the targets...trophies cant be collect in a 6 months based session. Plus, those trophies are obtained by destroying other players's towns/killing their units ...but players are complaining and threat to leave the game ...so, endless circle without issue.

So, popping up on the map 1 cell "Stripes/Trophies castles" full of units/monsters could be a solution. We will make joint attacks against those castles and that will keep us occupied, we will get trophies and we will have a goal in the game. Trophies will be for "x " type of units/monsters,  the entire castle wiped out can be the last trophy. Units /monsters will respawn after "x" days or once all the batches of units/monsters are killed  ( +some buildings destroyed ? ). We are not getting experience or stuff there, only stripes and trophies for our War Victory, so, the collect players wont have any reasons/advantage to go there.

And we will get the stripes by killing units from the higher ages  :-)  It will keep your idea of attacking countries with a higher level than our current level :-)

  We will still have the opportunity to attack the other players of course , we will still have wars for borders/ globals /personal reasons but less than now for sure. 

 Could be very interesting :-)

Should really understand that no matter how many changes you make for the peaceful players it won't change. Players will always get upset and leave, no matter what. This is a fact with any type of competitive game. You can continue to give tool after tool after tool, they are still not being used and they will still leave.

Another thing you should understand, almost all of your players here came from totem tribe and other non competitive games. You have also given them the illusion that they can play solo in your descriptions and in the video trailer. That alone is extremely misleading... And when they get attacked they will be that much more upset naturally. 

You can not expect to please everyone, farmers will not stay in a competitive environment and warriors will not stay in a farmer game. Eventually you will have a large mix of players, but making drastic changes so early without real numbers to test with will end up running both parties away.

Actually I think Savi came up with a really good idea.  Please consider it.

Actually I think Savi came up with a really good idea.  Please consider it.

Which exactly? The post about has no idea, it only says "war victory" does not work, which is obvious anyway. It does not proposes how to make it work.

That idea: "Perhaps stripes and trophies could be earned elsewhere too, not exclusively from players - for example, single-cell npc-castles popping on the map here and there, defended by hundreds of dragons, sages and enchanted towers and lvl100 wall...;) , requireing huge efforts of coordinated attacks from entire alliances..."

Actually I think Savi came up with a really good idea.  Please consider it.

Which exactly? The post about has no idea, it only says "war victory" does not work, which is obvious anyway. It does not proposes how to make it work.

I've even developped Savi's idea... but maybe you've just missed my post !

It is impossible to cater for everyone, the best we can hope for is that we cater for enough people so that more people enter the game than leave it.

To add to the points on war victory, even after changes, the reward for victory must be substantial, so that players will have no problem being deleted in exchange for winning. 

That idea: "Perhaps stripes and trophies could be earned elsewhere too, not exclusively from players - for example, single-cell npc-castles popping on the map here and there, defended by hundreds of dragons, sages and enchanted towers and lvl100 wall...;) , requireing huge efforts of coordinated attacks from entire alliances..."

I didn't even evaluated it, because it completely defeats the "War Victory" idea. War Victory should be achieved by mainly fighting other players. It has to be strictly PvP victory.

it was merely an example, even if it was a really bad one... the proposal itself was ''The whole concept of war victory needs some tweaking, have players brainstorming for ideas perhaps...''

Just dictate your criterias, and maybe someone does come with an idea that can be used...

  There have been some very valid points raised in this discussion and I am happy to see some real suggestions.  It is wonderful to see.  This is the first real time multi player game I have ever played, and that was only because I loved the original Totem games.  I have stopped playing, and I sent Bers an explanation of why and made some suggestions that I thought would not affect warrior types, but might incorporate peaceful players in a separate region. 

   Everyone has a point, from their own perspective, and as usual, not many peaceful players are posting, partly because we don't want to draw any attention to ourselves.   

    Overcrowding seems to be the consensus for reasons for border building and attacks.  It is quite disheartening to spend a couple of days on a new country only to find yourself surrounded.  This is a reason that some start several countries, to see which one is in the best position.  And not only does it seem we are starting out closer together this alpha, but the fun things are farther away!  Please can't we have a little more space?  Isn't it time to try more than one region at a time?

    Diplomacy is a useful tool, but there has to be compromise on both sides, not just someone "granting permission".  It is not "do or give me what I want or there will be war".  It is also a good idea for war to expire after a given time, but there should not be a waiting period to declare again.  Also, truly "peaceful" players should not be instigating and posting fireworks, but should not be afraid to stand up to another player.

     From the perspective of someone that does not like to fight, repeated mass attacks of the weakest players with the intention of taking them off the map is not good sportsmanship, and these smaller players are certainly not taking up too much space.  It does weaken the alliance when they are reinforced, could that be the strategy?  I can not fathom that attacking the "easy pickings"  is in any way testing anything, or could even be that much fun for the attackers, it's like shooting sitting ducks! Please enlighten me if I am wrong.    Some players do not like to reinforce, especially when there are 14 attackers, because when the entire alliance sends all its armies, they still get wiped out, they are left with weakened defense and then in a couple of hours the next attack wave comes.  Also, troops that are reinforcing another player do not have the collective defense bonus and are the first to be killed.  It is very hard for non warrior types to understand that every attack must be defended.

   I am pleased that Bers is willing to try something, but the 30 days younger will not work.  I have already figured out how to work around that, and I am not a warrior type.

   Yes, there is a lot to be learned about reinforcing and defending. There is no other way to learn than by actually being attacked and trying different stratagems and see what works. But the above mentioned mass attacks only foster hopelessness and frustration.  If there was a bit of time to spend on other things in the game it would not be so bad.  After the tense hour of time preparing for an onslaught, picking up the dead, shuffling supplies to retrain, etc, there is no time left for the fun stuff!  And my poor hero spends more time in church than a nun..

    A new player may get lucky and escape attention for a while,  but the only way to be "safe" is to join one of the big alliances.

   I think Savipats idea and Arya's development of that idea is a wonderful one, war is not only fought human to human. Ever see War of the Worlds or Independence Day?  Why does it need to be strictly pvp?  I had mentioned something similar to Bers from a peaceful perspective, and I really hope that can evolve into something practical and fun. 

   I applaud the ideas and suggestions coming out and I sincerely hope you will all keep the game progressing, because I would like to come back eventually.    

That idea: "Perhaps stripes and trophies could be earned elsewhere too, not exclusively from players - for example, single-cell npc-castles popping on the map here and there, defended by hundreds of dragons, sages and enchanted towers and lvl100 wall...;) , requireing huge efforts of coordinated attacks from entire alliances..."

I didn't even evaluated it, because it completely defeats the "War Victory" idea. War Victory should be achieved by mainly fighting other players. It has to be strictly PvP victory.

Bers, you are too rigid. If players with experience tell you that something is not going to work, give it at least some thought and if necessary let go of your original idea. You might end up with a better game.