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Kingdom Influences

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As those of you that have played/do play on PvP servers will know, kingdom influence is anything but a perfect system. There have been plenty of bugs over the years, and still some ongoing recently to do with people planting deeds or towers where they technically shouldn't have been able to, small spots of influence sticking around where it shouldn't and however many other little things like this that make it a super annoying system when you get caught out by it.

 

I'm looking through options to fix this at the moment, and with how well the new altar domain system is working I'm thinking of remaking the influence system to use the same sort of idea - in that influence zones would be directly based off of the guard tower or deed token items, and not just a side system that may or may not update correctly when a deed or tower is placed/removed. There are a couple of ways this new way of doing it could go.

 

First option is to make the influence strength of towers based on the quality of the tower, very similarly to how altars work. You'd still be restricted in that you couldn't build a tower in range of another kingdom's influence, but on bordering areas you could spend time to improve your towers quality to slowly take over contested territory. This would work the same as altars, so a 50ql tower 50 tiles away would exert a power of 1 on the tile you're on, and another kingdom's 60ql tower also 50 tiles away would exert a higher power on your tile, so it would count as the second kingdom's influence. You could then improve your tower to higher than 60 to take over that tile for your kingdom.

Some initial responses to this I've had think that this might work if there is a cap to the strength involved, so towers fighting for 99.xql won't matter - the current thought is capping it so a tower can't have over 90 strength (so going over 90ql won't increase the influence at all). It would also mean that bashing a tower would slowly take down it's effective quality, slowly converting the land to your kingdom if you have a tower nearby. The option is also there in this system for influence range of towers to be more or less than their usual 60 tiles, depending on QL - though keeping it at a static 60 tiles is also possible.

This option could also be used in a way so that any tiles that have more than one kingdom within X strength of each other could be considered 'contested' territory that nobody owns. A possible extra buffer between kingdoms maybe?

 

Second option is similar to now, a tower exerts a set strength on every tile in range, for the same current range as today's towers - no variability. A deed would probably exert a higher strength so it would always override any towers, but the range would only go so far as the perimeter, as it does now. Building any towers or deeds within range of an opposing territory would act the same as now, blocking any placement or expansion - but the weird areas and random overlapping would be fixed.

 

So this is open for discussion - do we want some new mechanics involved with territories and kingdom influences, or keep everything as close as possible to how it works now?

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I would say the biggest problem the game has now as far as influence goes, is the ability to build a random tower somewhere and drop a deed not near your current influence/capital. 

 

I will say tho that there are way more important things to be looking at then this, such as: De-sync, client stability, the embark bug where your client freezes you untill you relog, and many many more "Game Breaking" things.

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Yeah far more important things that could be fixed tower influ shouldn't even be close to the top of the list imo.

 

Embark bug for all mounts vehicles.

De-sync.

Horses getting stuck in house walls.

Proph falling into enemy mines.

Boats/wagons disappearing.

Shield bashing saying youre busy when you start the action while changing where you are targeting. 

Being able to mount a wagon as passenger and looting an enemy safe mine.

Chain fences on walls not able to be catapulted at times and damage resetting to 0 after 100.

 

 

I'm sure people have a lot more deal breakers out there.

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This is for discussion about the idea raised, nothing else.

 

If you'd like to give feedback on the suggestion feel free to, but again, derailing means 1) you derail the topic and 2) you dont get the chance to provide input prior to the release

 

this also is not the only project being worked on, but simply something we felt you'd like to give feedback on

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I like the idea in priciple, however all we're talking here is a battle of who has the most masonry skill (in which case who has the most money to buy an account).

 

I certainly think trying to fix the system so it updates more reliability and accurately would be a massive step in the right direction.

 

I think also a indicator when getting an error message planting a deed or tower (have it base off the locate soul direction and length). This would help greatly with QoL.

 

Another one im sure is related in terms of capturing towers, can we please have a summon tower guard option much like there is on tokens? Sometimes the guards bug out (they don't chase in someone else's influence) or they get stuck in mines etc.

 

I certainly think there is room for improvement, so lease, guys, don't shoot him down to trying to help.

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But why change the color of a sail on a boat that still has holes in it? 

 

But on topic :

Love the summon guard idea nothing worse than not being able to cap a tower due a guard on his coffee break 2 locals out

 

If the max influ spread is at 90 effective QL will there be a Influ min or will it go down to like 1 tile as the effective QL nears 0 and will it be more or less than the current (as far as max area claimed)

 

Will change in effective ql be an instant change in influence?

 

 

Edited by Riddic

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It can work well if the QL system is capped ot prevent "who can imp 0.01 higher than the other guy" wars. Cap it out at 90QL being the max influence seems best. If the system could be made to work similarly to altars it'd be brilliant because the influence system for those seems to be very stable and updates accurately. 

 

Other things that i'd like would be the return of "influence pushing" instead of being able to plonk or capture towers in the middle of nowhere, make capping only work on borders between 2 kingdoms for example. Which has another problem.....people being able to use tiny cheap deeds to make towers uncappable.

 

Overall though, good to see this age old issue with buggy influence being looked at.

 

Edited by Nadroj
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2 hours ago, Riddic said:

If the max influ spread is at 90 effective QL will there be a Influ min or will it go down to like 1 tile as the effective QL nears 0 and will it be more or less than the current (as far as max area claimed)

 

Will change in effective ql be an instant change in influence?

 

For the max and min range, that's up for debate. It can be 1ql = 1 tile and 90ql = 90 tiles, or 1ql = 30 tiles and 90ql is 60 tiles, or anything in between. Just depends on what people consider a decent range. And yes any changes would update instantly, as it would directly be checking the QL of the tower that has power over the tile - like how altars work currently.

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Please provide a buffer system. It will make everyone's lives easier as the check code can always be based on buffer. That would most likely prevent issues like we had with an overlapping influence and an enemy deed boarder 33 tiles outside of our deed boarder. 

 

If this type of change is subtle in terms of ql affecting influence and it's mainly to offset by a few tiles at the highest quality I see it as a good system. Of the influence is drastically altered by ql then it becomes who has more masonry battle and imo is wrong approach. 

 

I firmly believe a buffer is a needed aspect for many reasons some for code and checks and some for game play and abilities for younger players and groups. (newer/weaker people)

 

A buffer can be any number of tiles. My suggestion is 25.

 

Please also make it so deeds are part of this influence and not just guard towers. At times enemy's can be known to bash all the guard tower that are not conquerable and that would mean there is 0 Influence outside of deed at that point. Perhaps deeds should not have a 60 tile influence from their boarder but some extra influence should be present.

Edited by MaurizioAM

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I would think that if the current 50 tile minimum between towers is to remain as it is, then the minimum influence any tower should be allowed to give out under any system should really be 50 tiles.

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I like the second option, and keeping towers 50 tiles minimum between eachother. The first one, i wouldn't really mind, but still, the second is my preference.

 

 

i would also add a summon guards command for both enemy and player kingdoms. so frustrating to find a guard at waterlevel below your tower in ONE non collapsed cave tile.

 

 

What would be really cool though, i don't know how technologically feasible this is, but having both systems work together.

So you have a homeland turf which functions with nice static numbers similar to option two, and you have a contested turf, which functions similar to option one. Might be able to give kings more control over the map this way too, or create some interesting mechanics.

Edited by Propheteer
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I don't think there is anything wrong with how the current system is meant to work. I would suggest fixing the bugs but keeping the system unchanged and spend time on more pressing issues.

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Perhaps having a default tower influence regardless of QL that is 50 tiles (The same distance between towers) while increasing QL of a tower will expand this influence by a fraction of the QL (e.g. QL/2) to a maximum of 90QL might be nice.

The option to summon guards would be a lovely feature to add to remove issues with missing tower guards.

I would like to see the chaining of influence by towers/deeds in some mechanic for a strategic warfare rather than dropping deeds anywhere a small gap in influence may exist (such as bashing a single tower)

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20 hours ago, Redd said:

I like the idea in priciple, however all we're talking here is a battle of who has the most masonry skill (in which case who has the most money to buy an account).

 

What if range maxed out at a "moderate" level that is not terribly hard to obtain - but of course max possible level above that level still contributes to how difficult it is to destroy/take over. 

I don't know that say 90 ql for max range (whatever that would be) is a bad thing -  but maybe something like 50ql to reach the max range would be more encouragement for players not yet to a very high masonry skill to participate in land squabbles.  More play, more fun for everyone? 

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4 minutes ago, Idony said:

 

What if range maxed out at a "moderate" level that is not terribly hard to obtain - but of course max possible level above that level still contributes to how difficult it is to destroy/take over. 

I don't know that say 90 ql for max range (whatever that would be) is a bad thing -  but maybe something like 50ql to reach the max range would be more encouragement for players not yet to a very high masonry skill to participate in land squabbles.  More play, more fun for everyone? 

 

I'd say there needs to be a balance between being nice to newer players and not making skilled players feel like they shouldn't bother putting the extra effort in. 50QL feels like too far extreme into the former.

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Long as the current issues are resolved, either option works personally.

 

Might be best to keep it at 50min, just to avoid having to completely redo current tower layouts. Unless placement change was made easier temporarily.

 

EDIT: On a side note, the Freedom tower has the best looking model imho.

Edited by Klaa

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19 minutes ago, Klaa said:

EDIT: On a side note, the Freedom tower has the best looking model imho.

 

NO NO NO NO NO

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13 hours ago, Nadroj said:

 

NO NO NO NO NO

 

Do not deny what you know to be true, Nadroj.

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I like the QL matters idea budda, static 50-60 at 1 ql didn't make sense in RP terms.  But you slowly imping the tower to create the largest area of influence seems better than everyone stopping at 50-60ql towers for max guards.

 

Secondly how hard is it to create a no influence focus zone? Easy thing to add to the gm tool to allow them to help fix hotfixes too.

 

Lastly, if people want change, it's hard to read the comments where having to redo stuff is avoiding the suggestion train seems counterintuitive. I dunno I guess.

 

^ to clarify the last, people want PvP fixed, but they don't want to redo any of their work... 

Edited by Brew
Called our overlord buddy not budda, wow I'll stop typing today.

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I feel this is a nice idea, adding more depth into how towers work. So long as your idea gets the time and attention it deserves, then it will turn out well. Too many things in Wurm used to be left half finished and now remain/feel incomplete.
This will of course raise the problem that some towers on the pvp servers may be misplaced and perhaps outside of their kingdom's influence.

If someone only has the masonry skill to improve something to 50, then I don't believe they are ready for pvp. There's a lot of building involved in pvp servers and masonry is quite an easy skill to get.
I don't really see why a cap to the tower strength needs to be involved. If someone has worked on the skills to imp a tower past 90, and is prepared to imp the thing for the required days then it should be possible. I wouldn't see many people spending the bricks needed to improve a tower from 90 to 99. Keep in mind that to get the most guards out of a tower you will need to improve it to 50. Increasing the ql after that only increases the influence, and would spread the guards thinner than thinner.

A tower that has a larger influence would become a greater target for conquering too, since you would be able to gain more land by taking it over.


Whether the difficulty past 90 should be tuned, or if the benefit from high tower ql should have diminishing returns would need to be investigated. Finding a balance that people will be happy with. It need to get the attention it deserves to work well.

 

I really hope that the tower's influence/ql doesn't abruptly change, but rather slowly goes from what it was before the imp up to what it should be over time. A changing hidden ql that slowly goes towards the shown ql. Perhaps at the rate of 1ql hour. (Just an example, this update speed and influence radius change will need to be investigated)


There are so many interesting things that could be done with the influence system. It could be made more interesting and less of a game mechanic for the purpose of a game mechanic.

For example, in the case that a tower is growing it's influence and pushing against an enemy tower's influence.
It would work best with some sort of visual representation. So that this "invasion" doesn't go unnoticed to player's eyes.
I'd suggest that if a tower's influence is changing, and the influence area is contested with an enemy tower,
that guards from both towers gather in that area and begin fighting. The number of guards sent from each side to the battle would be proportional to the tower ql.
As the influence/hiddenQL slowly goes up to what it should be from the imp, more guards would be sent from that tower since a higher ql tower can hold more guards. 
 

This could be a proper battle to decide the influence, or just a theatrical display of influence changing.


A proper battle could be interesting though, as one side's guards overpower the other side, they could start bashing the enemy tower to decrease the enemy tower's ql.

This would also leave players free to contest the improvement. Perhaps by bashing the other tower while the guards are distracted, or by killing the contesting guards and swaying the battle into their kingdom's favour.

Opposing towers with non changing ql would not fight, and the guards should not create a corpse when they die. Perhaps a very quickly decaying corpse?
Could even create a truly epic battle with towers calling upon nearby same kingdom towers to send guards. It wouldn't get as huge as rifts, but it would still be an interesting display at the edge and danger zone of the kingdom.

Either way, I urge you to have some fun with the system. It is of course one of the main pillars of kingdom conflict and could make contesting land very interesting and enjoyable experience.

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Chaining towers and take capping out

 

:^ D

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