DrB

X4, Y27/28. Fort Summit and Summit Landing are no more.

Crew (sailor) vs soldier using link system: Crew linked to the commander impacts speed but can't shoot. Unlinked = can shoot (or cast) but headcount does not affect the boat performance. "Commanded correctly" (per Maurizio's point) now involves a conscious decision and communication versus purely RNG -- teamwork matters and everyone has a useful role (not just an extra body sitting afk for max speed) regardless of 2 year old account vs 8 year old account.

There are good points on both sides of the argument; however, I will say that even with 2 years of playtime and grinding like a fool, I know I can't compete in PVP with a lot of the long-aged accounts. That these accounts are bought/sold/traded and never expire simply increases that gap that Propheteer posted about. Now, Maurizio makes a good point about the 2 month old account beating the 2 year old account -- not very likely in many stats based games; however, that isn't what Propheteer was explaining: my interpretation being why can't a 2 year old account beat a 5 year old account? I'm not a fan of the whole curve thing having experienced it on WurmU I can tell you it would be a nightmare trying to merge that onto Chaos this late in the game, no pun intended. However, the answer (or a variation of) might be found in how some other PVP-centric/team-centric games have solved this problem. In those examples, they have artificially elevated the new players based upon teaming and proximity so that they can compete. They won't have the same capabilities but they at least can hit. In those games they would artificially elevate level (granting CR so they can hit) but they would still be hindered by lack of special moves and the like that the longer-aged players had at the true level. (I'm not talking about specials in Wurm which I understand need work -- just the specials equivalent in those games). Perhaps something like that or a "luck" factor? A luck factor being a CR adjustment that diminishes over the age of the character which has the same affect -- we have the newbie food/water/healing buff that lasts 24 hours, why not have a newbie PVP buff that lasts some much longer period of time that simply boosts CR so that they can actually hit or have a chance of blocking an arrow? Another interesting variant would be that newbie buff only show up on Chaos and work as SB for fighting related skill gains (FS, wep, archery, shield)? A baby-curve of sorts? On chaos, those skills would gain at curve-rates but the long-aged accounts would still have the benefit of the body/str/ctl just not so overwhelming on the CR.

I found the KOS bit funny for exactly the reason you pointed out...uh..Chaos? HOTS? Isn't that the definition of KOS?

Well, that would definitely change PVP -- but not in a good way.

That fight yesterday is also a clear example of why the "just be a pincushion" view that Retro mentioned on the last page is flawed. When you came out of that mine you could get 2-3 swings and then pop back down into the mine before archers could get a shot off. With a 2h axe and stacked buff/dmg bonuses you could have easily destroyed a non-SOTG/ < 50 body account just because of damage inflation. Arrows won't pincushion a SOTG using a 2h with a non-buggy hop (ala the shooting into buildings stuff) like a minedoor. Again, my caution about just buffing hitpoints is you trivialize the NPCs. If you go that route, you may as well just grant all players 70FS/wep skill. IMO, the damage calculation needs to be revisited and not just merely inflate hitpoints. The equation may have worked as intended 2-3 years ago but the distribution curve of FS/BodyStats/Wep stats has shifted to the right since then because characters don't "age out" but are instead sold to others so they remain in game.

From what i've read, simply doing things like adjusting SOTG, Hate Bonus, or even buffing hit points are just throwing bandaids at the problem. Damage dealing has scaled up and the flaws in the damage algorithm are being exposed. I would suggest the cause is that there are now accounts with body strength up there, based upon the posts above about 70 BS scaling up the damage radically. Simply buffing up player hitpoints isn't enough since that would then make it so a started player can take on a troll. Buffing up Troll damage would likely then cause other problems like damage to armor. A simpler answer may be (and i'm posing it for the Devs to consider looking at) is to change the combat/CR equation itself or at least make sure what used to be outliers (and is now the norm) aren't what is screwing it up. You can get the same effect as boosting hitpoints by lowering damage output but without requiring every creature and equipment damage element having to be looked at. When a 50+ body in 80+ plate with 90+ shield skill gets demolished in 7 hits over 20 seconds -- damage output is over the top.

Were they using 2h Axes? Just curious. From what i've read, it seems like the problem is the insane damage out of 2Hs which is the real driver and SOTG just lets those accounts run with the big 2H equipped more.

Except for Fo who gives a mission to go drain Dark Citadel

Mostly likely they recognize and are trying to avoid mudflation which is what normally happens when you take the buff versus nerf approach. Yes, they could make the same effect by boosting the effect of body, for example, so that non-SOTG could take 2 huge ax hits, but then NPCs would need to be buffed up and the cascading effects of "balancing" begins with all the complaints and unintended consequences. If they completely scrapped insanity, would there be complaints that the remaining are not balanced against each other? Probably not.

That pretty well sums it up. Defending isn't fun, but you have to do it or risk tle deed getting flattened and losing everything. The current system seems one of extremes due to how players actually play. I'm guessing the original though was that someone would just take down a tile, get inside, get some stuff, get a drain, and leave. Making these types of raids more fun is a fine goal; however, there are other raids which are just "obliterate the deed" type of raids where changes made to make the prior type easy, make the later type easy to the point of being griefer-esque. This also goes a prior post about kingdom rosters. The gist being MR had 1000, other PMKs having hundreds. Many of those are bots/alts solely to act as alarms for twitter or ways of holding your stuff so it can't be taken in a flattening raid or just lockpicked. I'm not sure having any sort of PMK "size" restriction isn't going to be harmful because of that. Someone mentioned having a cap negatively impacting the ability of friends to play together -- and that is true (and why I am also against caps). Other MMOs looked at side imbalance by buffing and other temporary mechanics: 1. Warbirds (1990s-2000s flight sim) did it by using their map. High population got the map as normal. Low population got the map with enemy force lines. Their map had a grid superimposed (like our letter/numbers but with lines as well) and in each block they got a red line with the size of the line indicating relative # of enemy aircraft there. This allowed them to strike or defend more cohesively and prevent the surprise attack by the large country. 2. WW2OL limited respawn rate by putting in a delay on respawn when strength deviated. I don't know how that would work here except by increasing timers on catapults/mining/etc -- but we already have a defense bias. I'm not saying to use these, only throwing these out to get the brains flowing of other ways to handle dramatic imbalance. (Oh, the above were based upon "who's online" not "who's a member.")

I think this got turned sideways because of the PVE conversation that got brought in. I thought the complaint was, for example, I put my main on a sailboat with 4 SOTGs and then log off. That way the SOTGs hold "5 player speed" even though i'm not around to get pincushioned to slow the boat down. Meanwhile, the enemy with 5 players "active" get their weakest pincushioned and are now slower (removing rarity of boat). The only quirk I can see is what happens when a player drops connection and is reconnecting, does the boat suddenly slow down and prevent the get-away? Perhaps the "fix" is a combination, they solve the sailing is too slow problem while adjusting speed to "online/embarked" when an enemy is in local."

The point of my post wasn't "Nerf because of MR" but that all the reasons I have read against the teleport being removed/limited were being portrayed as "this isn't needed, because MR isn't affected by the teleport system as is." For example, a prior post asserted something along the lines of... MR raids JK and JK can't port in enough to stop us and if they do we just go elsewhere and they're stuck there; therefore, nothing needs to change. That anecdote omits that it DOES affect OTHER kingdoms who can't simply overwhelm with numbers (how far do you think a HOTS attack on an MR deed would go before MR ported in 10-15 people all around the point of attack so they can encircle and wipe out the attacking force, which the current porting system allows). The arguments being made for "teleport isn't broken" are all lopsided from the MR point of view and so I was presenting the alternative view -- that the current teleport mechanic is a big inhibitor to anyone being able to attack any substantially larger kingdom.

I love how the criticism against changes to teleport are of the MR perspective. Oh, if they teleport in the village, we just change where we raid and they're stuck. The bigger thing about removing information minister AND the teleport change is that MR deeds (theoretically) become more vulnerable. I'm saying MR here not as a slight to MR but only because they travel in the largest groups for raids right now. As someone pointed out, MR shows up with 20, defenders bring in 15, not 100; however, if JK or HOTS were to send 5-15 in on a MR deed, how likely is it that MR could/would be able to teleport in > #s? Very, because they have the people. Now, use that same "pro-MR" argument about oh, you just change your point of attack -- that is again ignoring MR being the one under attack, and MR not using the overwhelming teleport. JK attacks deedA with 15. MR ports in 10, so JK decides to go to deedB. MR can port in a different 10. In both of those cases, the 10 porting in do NOT have to be the biggest-baddest because of how defense works. Now that i've pointed that out -- I do want to say I'd prefer a different anti-teleport approach. Leave the teleports (karma and vinvites) in. Simply make it so that when a deed is "locked down/settlement alarm" is active, the village isn't allowed to invite anybody into it. That way, at least true villagers who may be out on a raid can karma port home. Removing the teleport entirely creates a situation where someone is on a raid and and can't leave without disrupting the raid (ala, taking a sailboat and ending the raid for 4 others, etc).

Retro: In an early remark you pointed out a desire to make raiding less tedious being the basis for some of these propositions; however, that ignores the purpose of many raids is not simply to drain and get stuff -- some have the objective of total destruction. It happens on Chaos, it happens in WU. In some cases, the flattening of a deed is done because one kingdom wants the land. In other cases, it is purely griefing. I think a lot of players know this, have experienced it, or have dealt it out. This is the underlying thought process around the criticism of the 'attacking easier' goals.

The discussion about removing twitter is irrelevant when any middle school kid can write a log parser, log in an alt at a deed and just watch for the event.log message alerting the deed and post that out on twitter/IRC. The removal of teleport at least prevents the insta-port in of defenders either to the deed or to a nearby deed.

Or just fire 6 catapult shots at a longhouse wall at an undefended deed, collapse that tile, and walk on in. The combination appears heavily geared to the attack. While yes, it makes it so a smaller kingdom could, in theory, go raid the multitude of deeds scattered around the S and E sides of the map (twitter warning and hellhorse rides buy the attacker some time since information minister doesn't give the early warning), the effects aren't restricted from the larger kingdoms who will find it a much quicker task to flatten a deed.

Removal of oakshell from mounts means we also can't oakshell pets or archery grinding targets. For SOTG, I like the idea of a SOTG tank in cloth/leather better than being unable to heal them. You suggest the healing change option means they're strong in short-term melee but what it really means is just that SOTG becomes target #1 versus what we have now. That being said, I'm not sure making SOTG + leather ~ plate isn't too far. Perhaps adjusting it to SOTG + cloth = just above steel, +leather/chain/plate = no effect, +dragon/moon = some added physical damage debuff? SOTG + dragon/moon should remain superior or you've completely flipped the gearing of the SOTGs. Can't embark in combat could be nasty. It makes entering combat a "to the death" event. Think about that from a raid standpoint..one arrow, and you're stuck if you came by boat. If tower guards aggro the capper, how will that not just end the cap at every guard spawn? I think if you require all guards dead to finish the cap, the way they aggro on spawn doesn't need to change. Deed costs -- if you mean raising the minimum cost, that's different than what you said which implies many deeds becoming cost prohibitive particularly when the ATM...er, HOTA...will readily cover those costs for one kingdom and no others.

What sets SOTG apart from other skills/stats is the 5/day + 3 hour delay limit with the non-guaranteed tick. While a casual player can grind out other stats with sleep bonus, you can't really grind out meditation & the questions in casual playing mode. The people playing all the time can get 6-7 meds a day in for 1-2 ticks but for someone who only plays 2-3 hours a day then you're never going to get there. That is the hurdle that drives a desire to change it. It isn't that it is overpowered, it's that it is virtually unattainable to a casual player (you aren't getting there in the minimum time the wiki tells you) and that keeps the casual new player non-competitive in PVP unless they are willing to spend hundreds of dollars to buy an account and then even more to prem it up. At least for priests, you can spend 2 hours online each day and get all of your prayers in and pretty predictably work your way to 70 faith or so. I would imagine the same suggestion if you had a random "well, 70% of the time you won't get a faith tick, but we're going to limit you to 5 prayers per day." The all-day gamer can get their prayers in, do sermons, etc, get 6-7 med attempts in, blah blah. I've had 2-3 days go by without a med tick with 7+ per day -- and that was in the 30s, not the 60s! Make meditation like faith so the variable is the question timer and it's fine as is -- 5 meds per day, you get a tick, not affected by sleep bonus or CoC.

A simpler fix is to not allow the cap to complete unless all the guards are dead the same as the requirement to start the cap. (Just make it the same type of message as completing a fence when you are too close.)

Bangzuvelis, I was referring to the referral you get the first time you go premium which most people sell for 6s (gives like 3 weeks of prem time). I do like the idea you have of giving a premium referral "token" you can hand out to characters that have never been premium. Get someone hooked on riding a horse and they'll never want to go back to non-prem =))

There are just too many scammers/thieves mingling with the honest people. Just make the referral a piece of paper that if examined you say "Referral from <name>, give to another player to use for premium time." The /use can actually add it. That way you actually trade something for the money versus working on trust. I realize that the referral was meant to give to a friend; however, I think the majority of the time they are just sold for coin.

If you're all about bot information then why not just have a new stream of info spit out to even that gives the x,y location on the map for all online champs of the kingdom with the greatest influence? Maybe x,y coordinates not of champs, but of all locals where "big kingdom" numbers is greater than 5? (some old flight simulator games did this on the map because it allowed PVP to be found -- so it isn't without precedent) /sarcasm off Back to the original points though, simply removing twitter isn't going to solve the problem. As others have mentioned, so long as the information is written to a log file an external program (aka, the same way Wurm Assistant operates with Granger) can pull it and send to IRC/Twitter instead. My question is how does a /who bot work without violating the macro rules since it would need a client that "macros" out a /who command on an interval or kingdom title data, right? I would vote for getting rid of the secret police alarms. Get rid of tower caps in death tabs. Only "alert" for a tower cap should be an alarm if it's within local (yes, you hear combat sounds -- but that assumes you can hear) Oh, and detect all those clients sending an automated /who and giving them a macroing ban.

I like this version of the idea, if you aggro a guard let it fire the message, but not just simply because you stepped into kingdom influence. With the "leaved logged in with a log scanner sending twitter" aspect, simply add a time calculation between where that logged in Head of the Secret police is and the guard tower. 120 second delay for every 100 tiles or something.

The same argument could be that players are lazy and don't want to put in any work to get moon metals and HOTA statues to sell to Freedomers to pay for the upkeep The blocker deeds around the HOTA are fine if the HOTA is not acting as an ATM, like if HOTA statues and moon metals/gear couldn't leave Chaos. It's one thing if it's going to gear up the winner's kingdom but another entirely when it's unopposed 99% of the time because one kingdom is permitted to effectively shut it off from all others (you make it sound like it's all fair that 1 kingdom can ride 10 minutes to get in there and start capping while all others have to spend hours sneaking in with the Information Minister letting everyone know they are coming -- imagine if the opposing information minister announced to other kingdoms who was within say 100 tiles of the HOTA so JK/HOTS knew "oh, MR only has these 3 people running the HOTA!" As far as instant gratification PvP...what other point is there to having a HOTA with a well publicized alarm clock? Why not just have moon metals drop off the god summoned spirits instead or show up through foraging?