RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (Full Version)

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Flamehead 12 -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (1/31/2015 20:44:10)

quote:

A war isn't a war in DF if you have no option to win.


I feel the same if you have no option to lose. but perhaps that is just me personally



Rio3678 -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (1/31/2015 22:31:27)

quote:

@Rio3678: The staff already does that when they throw a war challenge (Get to X% at Y time to get Z item/shop) at us.


I said at the beginning of the war, in other words not as a bribe to get us to go faster when we are being painfully slow.

Examples of those include the Turkducken war, Dragon Rider war, and some 3rd war I can't remember. The Turkducken war I can understand as that came in the wake of the Ebil Corp War which we completed over the weekend (for DF at least)



The Jop -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (1/31/2015 22:38:06)

@Flamehead
We have the option to lose, we're just too good. [;)]

Any war is going to be a challenge; whether or not we meet it is up to the community. Though it's not really a war if we have no say in whether we win or lose.



Arkste -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (1/31/2015 22:59:27)

I've been meaning to post on this thread for some time now, but I've been quite busy with my classes.

I do hope I'm not too late to this discussion because I wanted to bring it this up much earlier, close to around when this thread began. While I've never been particularly fond of wars due to how much of a grind their are and also due to how are they are sometimes incorporated into the narrative at inappropriate times (i.e., a war for the sake of a war), but wouldn't it be better to approach this discussion by determining what exactly it is that ways are supposed to offer to the player, from both a narrative standpoint and a mechanical standpoint? Every player has a differently perception of wars, and I think we could create a working definition of all the aspects of wars that make make them what they are and address each one of those aspects individually to potentially benefit as many players as possible.



ergotth -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/1/2015 0:49:24)

I think if you guys want a war to be lost, thats something not on the war itself, but written in the plot of the whole saga. If AE wants a war to end in a disaster, they would have written it as such, but usualy, wars are written with a victory afterwards. Its not an individual release, the wars are actualy the main part of every saga, its a reflex of what happened and what will happen. We did have wars written to end up in failure such as the elemental war where Falconreach was destroyed.

Thing is, there is no point of building a war meter to lose unless thats a VERY important plot twist in the end. (like, lets say, a war to defend a certain object, we win the fight and managed to secure this said object, but suddently the main antagonist manages to take that object anyway)



The Hollow Soul -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/1/2015 0:59:05)

It depends on the war that is being lost or won, if we are forced into a war where the only outcome is "You win! Yay for you guys." or "You lost, that's how the story went!" that isn't fun. If we're in a war that has the possibility to end with a win or a loss is a lot more exciting. Wars such as the Elemental Avatar War where we lost but did have a realistic chance of winning, the Void Core war during Tomix B3 where we won but had a realistic chance of losing, and most of the orb saga wars where the fate of the orb was destined on how our outcome in a war was (example, if we lost the Energy orb war Seppy would have gotten it. But we won in the nick of time so the hero got it.)

But I think the issue with having a war have a win or a loss option now is(no offence to staff) we don't have a huge staff to do it. Tomix would have to animate two cutscenes and two different boss options. V and Ash would have to code both of those options. Geo or someone else would have to write both of those plot lines out. It'd end up becoming a two-three week release just for one release.



ricardo1991 -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/2/2015 18:52:49)

That wouldnt be really expensive though if we where that far advanced enough

Just look at a black and white screen

Pretty sure you can buy one for a buck now, where back in the day it would have costed a fortune to own one...

But where still trying to go to the virtual reality level, all we need is a breakthrough mehehehe



Myra -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 14:10:15)

quote:

What really bothers me about wars is that when they are over you can no longer get defender medals. There are some items that require 500 defender medals to merge and the previous level versions of the item, which also cost more defender medals. If this problem can be solved I would have no problems with wars.


This is something I have to disagree with. We fight wars for honor, and fun, and to stick it to the bad guys, sure. But at least some of us, some of the time, also fight in wars for Defender Medals. Take that motivation away by giving us permanent easy access to DMs, and you might see wars lasting a whole lot longer, and victories becoming a whole lot rarer.

There is already a way to earn DMs outside of wars, with Fires over Oaklore. This is a quest that takes a long time, and has no rewards besides one Defender Medal for a tedious series of increasingly difficult waves. And that's exactly how I want it. :D

Since DMs are needed to train the Guardian armor, it was necessary to allow for this option to earn them while no war is going on. But that should not be an easy or fast option. DMs need to keep their main purpose as a the reward for fighting in wars, and we need some incentives to fight really, really large amounts of waves.



Ash -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 14:18:11)

quote:

I do hope I'm not too late to this discussion because I wanted to bring it this up much earlier, close to around when this thread began. While I've never been particularly fond of wars due to how much of a grind their are and also due to how are they are sometimes incorporated into the narrative at inappropriate times (i.e., a war for the sake of a war), but wouldn't it be better to approach this discussion by determining what exactly it is that ways are supposed to offer to the player, from both a narrative standpoint and a mechanical standpoint? Every player has a differently perception of wars, and I think we could create a working definition of all the aspects of wars that make make them what they are and address each one of those aspects individually to potentially benefit as many players as possible.


This is pretty much a good place to start. We know the technical limitations as well as the man power restrictions we have. We now know some of the things you want and we can try to accomplish them, but without having a good base of realistic ideas to pull from we have a limited pool of concepts to implement.

quote:

What really bothers me about wars is that when they are over you can no longer get defender medals. There are some items that require 500 defender medals to merge and the previous level versions of the item, which also cost more defender medals. If this problem can be solved I would have no problems with wars.

Those are meant to be long terms goals, not something you grind for every weekend. It's also something to get you to participate in the war itself. If they were available in large amounts at any time there would be less of a reason to participate other than if you liked the story.



Christophoses -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 14:41:16)

@Myra

Thank you for telling me about this alternative method. I didn't know that existed until now.

@Ash

I really only participate in wars for the story. I want to contribute in getting that meter to 100% as quickly as possible. I really enjoy watching the intro cut-scenes, battling the war boss and watching the concluding cut-scene. I wish there were more cut-scenes throughout the war, but I know that isn't really possible since the DF team is really busy with other things.



Azan -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 16:37:55)

A nice thing would be if people who aren't necessarily grinders could contribute without having to fight.

Say, for example, you could donate gold in the War camp (let's say to hire mercenaries). At specific amounts of gold donated by the playerbase (say, for example, 10 million) the meter starts raising all by itself at a speed of, let's say, 1 wpm. Because your hired mercenaries are fighting waves too, or something like that. By donating gold, people could actually help our warring speed without having to grind. But of course, the most efficient way to help the meter would be to crush waves yourself.

I don't know if that could work, but if it does, I think it'd allow non-grinders to help even more.



Adel -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 17:23:06)

@Azan

I don't think I like that idea.... that would kinda kill the feel of a challange me think. leave the hiring mercenrary to the Rich Noble Royalty, wait............ o.O



Ash -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 18:28:14)

quote:

Say, for example, you could donate gold in the War camp (let's say to hire mercenaries). At specific amounts of gold donated by the playerbase (say, for example, 10 million) the meter starts raising all by itself at a speed of, let's say, 1 wpm. Because your hired mercenaries are fighting waves too, or something like that. By donating gold, people could actually help our warring speed without having to grind. But of course, the most efficient way to help the meter would be to crush waves yourself.

As delicately as possible, that would promote a type of activity that's both dangerous to the servers AND not fair to other players. We can have other types of things like doing a few quests for supplies and such but other than that using gold in that way is...iffy. There were issues with donations in the past if I recall correctly due to that.



admahu -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 18:40:46)

On the topic of Defender's Medals, I do think lowering the costs for the Defender's Accessories (maybe a little across all the tiers) would be a good idea. Take the Defender's Dragon Belt for example, when it first came out, I think it required 500 Defender's Medals to fully upgrade, not a problem. But the 100 requirement for any and all upgrades over the past 4 years has skyrocketed the requirements. The Defender's Dragon Belt now requires 1,800 Defender's Medals to fully upgrade. For anyone keeping up with their upgrades, the 100s aren't a problem. But I think the build up actually discourages any players who don't already have them from participating in wars. Why should they farm for Defender's Medals if the amount they need is almost countless?



The Hollow Soul -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 18:56:05)

The defender items are for bragging rights for the most part. You aren't required to farm for them to beat the game, they're there for the people who want to get them, if the player doesn't want to do the work or think farming for it isn't worth the reward, they can ignore them for other item. DMs can be super easy to get since the catapult drops them pretty fast so it's not impossible hard to farm for.



admahu -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 19:03:37)

Does the catapult alone justify the cost increasing by thousands since its release? The catapult isn't even in all wars.



Ash -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 19:11:18)

They fill the same concept as a challenge mode boss. Not necessary to complete story lines and an extra you can earn if you choose. The cost is there to offset the fact that you get above average stats for the most part.



The Hollow Soul -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 19:12:28)

No, but they're just there to be status symbols with some good stats. If someone wants them they'll farm for it, if they don't they won't. The Defender Cannon is the same way. I don't want to farm for 1000s of DMs so I'm not going to get it. But some people want it so they will. Back when I farmed for the Dragon Defender Items they were a few upgrades lower than they were now. But I wanted them as they were the best items in games for belt and necklace. If they are still the best and I was a new player, I'd probably still farm for them.

Edit: Ninja'd by Ash like normal. [;)]

I strike from the darkness! ~Ash



Evangel -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 19:35:05)

I don't mind wars as they currently are, but I'd like for more to work forward to besides Defender Medals and the boss loot. The Wrath of Wargoth war is an example of the type of war I enjoy the most in DragonFable.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/3/2015 20:49:45)

I legitimately think that first the catapult, and then making DMs 100% from the catapult were a massive mistake that directly leads to multiple negative situations.

Most wars don't have mega xp (unlike both recent pirate wars)
Before Voltabolt exponential xp inflation, wars were often seen as the go-to way to farm gold and xp, they were fast, and usually gave a bundle of rewards (DM items, xp, story progress) in the process. Some people even used wars to dump xp even long after Voltabolt became the best thing solely because of the additional rewards making up for the opportunity cost of lower xp.

With the double Pirates and Pirate vs Ninja wars, xp was double or even triple that of other wars. It legitimately had a chance to compete with Voltabolt as a real xp farming method.
Now, the thing that you'll notice is that neither war had the catapults, and they had far fewer waves than any "regular" war.

Discouragingly low WPM followed by enormous WPM

Now back at the latest Dragonrider war, not only did xp get reduced to its old formula, but it was made "more mundane" due to the class lock. WPM was very slow until catapult unlocked, after which it climbed insanely quickly before ending. The catapult made that war almost too easy. It took 5 days to get 1,125,000 waves, and then the remaining 4,375,000 took another 5 days. Progress tripled, and WPM and other statistics skyrocketed. In effect, the war was a 1M war coupled with a collective 40 million hammered leftclicks.

Catapult makes this extremely easy, and people now are wondering why something like the Necropolis War had 5M waves but took a month, despite the fact that the playerbase was very large then. It was because we had no catapult back then, and frankly, we don't need one at all.

DM items having astronomical prices
DMs used to be like 50% rate or lower back when they were first added to catapult (as seen in the Gilded World War), and only recently has that changed. Now we see 100% drop rates on DMs in every catapult, meaning not only are waves being completed in a fraction of the time that regular or even Snogger-type waves are being done, but they're all about clicking in the same magic spot 10 times, switch to another spot, switch to a third, turn in, and repeat. It's robotic.

The "100 per upgrade every new war" thing isn't a big deal at all, but the Cannons are like 2000, 3000, and 4500 (total 9500), which alongside the 13 Elemental Unity (6500), means a colossal task if not for catapult. It's as if everyone is severely encouraged to get it if they want to access some of the most interesting items in the game. This isn't such a big deal in most task-based RPGs, and it's seen in things like the AQW BLoD and so on, but doing 16000+ catapults just seems like a monotonous chore of an endgame goal.



I'm a little sad that the response to more Storm-like wars is "possible but we really shouldn't", but even without so many cool quests and ways to battle, turning wars into Catapult: the Movie: The Game seems almost alienating.



Christophoses -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/4/2015 16:15:59)

If the requirements for the Dragon Defender rings, belts and necklaces can be edited, I would have no problem with the wars. It's just that those are the only high leveled rings, belts and necklaces in the whole game, at least that I have found.

Why not make some lv. 80 rings, necklaces and belts that you can obtain as quest drops.



Ash -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/4/2015 16:37:41)

quote:

Most wars don't have mega xp (unlike both recent pirate wars)

I already explained why that was earlier in the thread. The Exp gained isn't likely to be altered anymore and we're going to try and have more of a handle on it to make sure there's no more spikes in certain wars.

quote:

Discouragingly low WPM followed by enormous WPM

This is partly a player issue and partly our issue. As you've seen here players want the fastest, easiest, least amount of work needed, way to beat a wave. They don't like slogging through normal waves and wanted different ways to do it. The catapult is just fast. That's the only reason. If I put the DM drops back to 50% it wouldn't change the fact that players want to do that because it's fast. Regardless of how much HP a war mob has if it's not as quick as possible to do it's not "good."

If we didn't need a catapult why do players keep asking for one. They were BEGGING for it in the recent PvN war even though there wasn't a need for it. Unless we can cause players as a whole to not want to eat through content as fast as possible we aren't going to be able to fix this issue. I've built in things for the engine update to put the brakes on most of you to actually MAKE you slow down but wars are one of the few places that I can't do that because they are intended to go fast.

quote:

DM items having astronomical prices

This isn't going to change. As I also already mentioned "luxury" items aren't going to be cheap. You're not supposed to get them all at once nor are you supposed to purposely blow hours of time trying to. They are a VERY long terms goal. Will some people get there faster because they war faster? Yes. We aren't going to adjust prices just because some people can get a luxury item faster.

quote:

I'm a little sad that the response to more Storm-like wars is "possible but we really shouldn't", but even without so many cool quests and ways to battle, turning wars into Catapult: the Movie: The Game seems almost alienating.

The amount of ways to do a war can be increased it's just hard for us TO increase them with our current staff amount. I would love to be able to give you all 30 ways to complete a wave. It's not feasible to do so when it's just me that has to make all those quests. That's why I said "we really shouldn't" and why I've asked for other options in terms of ways to complete waves that are viable. The supply run was put in because I was able to quickly reskin it and get it in game. If I can do that for other wars then you'll have 3 or 4 ways to do waves. I just can't on my own do that every time. The rest of the team also doesn't always have the time to do that. Heck I still haven't gotten done making the tooth fragment shop yet because I'm busy trying to get the HHD quests done AND the extra stuff for that release.

Christophisis - There are a few max level items. Any item at level 75 or higher will have far more stats than you need as a level 80. If you're using a level 70 neck, ring, belt, cape, and helm, you have right around the stats you'd need to beat any quest. I did address this concern a while back but I will again. Stats are weighted so that you don't HAVE to have on level gear. You can lag behind up to 10 levels and still be fine. This is why Non-DA items are still usable.



Rio3678 -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/4/2015 20:00:33)

quote:

Say, for example, you could donate gold in the War camp (let's say to hire mercenaries). At specific amounts of gold donated by the playerbase (say, for example, 10 million) the meter starts raising all by itself at a speed of, let's say, 1 wpm. Because your hired mercenaries are fighting waves too, or something like that. By donating gold, people could actually help our warring speed without having to grind. But of course, the most efficient way to help the meter would be to crush waves yourself


While I agree with Ash's reasoning, I have to admit, that is a very interesting concept, and it would probably help those who are unable to help most of the time to circumstances outside their control, (such as school, or in my case during the Dragon Rider war, medical reasons) feel like their still able to contribute and feel a part of the war. Tweak the concept a bit (or a lot, whichever is more within everybody's comfort zone) and it could potentially work.



megakyle777 -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/20/2015 9:46:22)

if I may post something, i think one issue with wars is fatigue from them. If there are, say, three wars in quick succession like so far, it can get people exhausted of them and is one reason we may fail this one. Another is war timing: it's possible and has happened that 3 or even 4 AE games have a war at the same time and as such loyalty to each game is divided. What I'd like to suggest, since each game has different war types, mingames and playerbases, is that wars be scheduled between them with small but significant gaps in between each one. The player can take either choose to play the game or take a break, and the usual players this way can pick up the slack with the break they get. Of course this then becomes a multi AE issue rather then just DF.



Ash -> RE: Issues with wars and how to improve them? (2/20/2015 11:12:43)

We aren't able to cross communicate like that in most cases. Some games have plans that can't be changed and they overlap.

We can't change our own schedule for next month but we are talking internally about proper gaps between wars after that along with the different ways to present them and how the quests in the war are handled.



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