RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (Full Version)

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The Jop -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/20/2015 21:08:46)

@Ash
We had 10 days and catapults for the Dragonrider War, so I think that made the difference. We just barely lost, so those small differences are probably crucial.



Ash -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/20/2015 21:09:38)

The War at the Core had a very similar deadline, was won around the same time, and had a very heavy storyline tax. The DragonRider war was won later only due to us not putting a deadline at the start. If we had the WPM reflected that it could have been won handily in the time required.

That's why I don't agree with your points. It can be done, it has been done, and it happened with the same numbers of players. Burn out is one of the only excuses I'll accept for this as it's the only one that fits. You all pushed really hard after the last one and that's pretty much the only reason it happened. If this war had occured in June or there was no F13 in February there would not have been an issue.

The Jop - You keep mentioning the catapult and ignored the fact I pointed out you had as high and even HIGHER WPM without them. Why are you still holding on to that when it obviously did not have a large contributing factor?



Branl -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/20/2015 21:14:02)

shadow dragon666: True, the whole Dragonfable community isn't on the forums, and this game's popularity is not nearly as high as it once was.

And I will even agree that the conclusion for wars like this seem a bit brutal for the type of game that is marketed to kids (Unless this has changed).

Deaths that really mean something to impact the storyline is something the community wanted and what gave this game new life.

Deaths/Unchangable disappearances for characters because it will have a strong impact on the story are something I've always wanted to see in this game.

When done right, it can make the storyline incredibly deep and impactful.

Like for example, if Ash was KIA'd in battle due to his stubbornness to back down in the face of evil, even at the cost of his life, that can be great for developing our characters, both the hero and other NPCs.

Threat of these things just to get the really devout warmongers to get the percent bar to move faster seems like it's in bad taste and sort of flies in the face of AE games.

I mean, Tomix's death felt more appropriate than this. He was no hapless innocent, with lives like his, The Hero's, or Galanoth's death is a possibility they all face.

The threat of Serenity's life in contrast, is merely the life of an innocent being put in danger for the sake of being put in danger. This is the prime reason I had no emotional investment in this war, her being in this danger doesn't do anything but act as a evil powerup for a villian. It is only really there because the players that visit the forums here often requested it.

Ash is not at fault here (I know you aren't saying he is), the community asked and he made good on his promise to make wars like this. They personally aren't my cup of tea, but as Ash says, quite a few players liked the war even after we lost and knew what would happen, so there is an appeal to some for things like this. The question is, after the community has felt the full impact of having wars like this, do we still feel it is worth it?






The Jop -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/20/2015 21:15:38)

@Ash
Just because catapults are faster in general than other means of warring. You can complete several waves in a minute; I don't know exactly how many but around 5. If we fought that hard with catapults our WPM would have been even higher. It does feel like one person can't really make a difference though. If I had gotten 1001 waves this war, it would not have done anything but insured that we lost at a slightly higher wave count. If the community as a whole isn't trying, it's a lost cause.



shadow dragon666 -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/20/2015 21:19:12)

Ash: Numbers goes hand in hand with burn out in a way though does it not? Less players, with more burning out = lower WPM. Now add in a cost to losing this one it didn't balance well. That said we still did quite well.

I also don't remember when core, and DR took place in terms of months and times.

Also was the DR war 10 days? If so that's 3 days extra, you can't say that the war wouldn't of been won with 3 days extra time. Me personally this tail end I got to play roughly 30 min of it. Due to time i get back from classes, which actually aligns closely with many of those who also play the game being 3 is when they get out, which then is 1 hour till 7 pm sever time. Was part of the reason I brought up in the war thread an extra 3 hours which could of been a make or break situation.



Gingkage -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/20/2015 21:27:37)

I think the phrase of the day is "Be careful what you wish for."

We wished for more epic wars. We wished for grand stories, multiple ways to war, wars that had evolving dialogue throughout, consequences for losing.

We got exactly what we wanted. And now that we have it, people are complaining because we're on a temporary losing streak.

Losses happen. I actually really like the consequences of losing the last war. Or more accurately, I like the fact that we have consequences. We failed to defeat the war in time. And because of that, we have to live with the results. This very much feels like a case of art emulating life, and I love it.

On the other hand, I wouldn't want something like this last war every time, for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, the amount of stress it puts on the staff means that wanting something like this every time is an unfair request on our part. They're people, too (well, I'm pretty sure Ash is a person and not a robot...), they deserve to have wars where they don't have to sacrifice things like sleep, real-life requirements, and the like that might have less things for us to do, but also put less of a burden on them.

But I also wouldn't want a war this epic every time because, well, part of what makes it so special is the fact that something like this realistically cannot happen every time. If every war had so many things happening in it, some of that 'special' would be lost. That sounds selfish, but it is my honest opinion.

So I do want more of what happened in this war. But only when the staff feel that a war merits all the bells and whistles.

I don't feel that losing the catapults and bombing runs were what contributed to our loss. I actually feel that losing them is part of what pushed us (though admittedly I didn't war as constantly as I could have because I cannot maintain that type of focus for too long) to do as well as we did. "We've lost two fast ways to war? Let's show Valtrith that that won't stop us from beating him!" Are catapults the fastest way for several people, myself included, to do waves? Yes. But I personally feel that instead of demoralizing us, it lit a fire under our butts and was a motivation.

I think that what happened this war is a case of burn out. We just had a war last month, we know that there will be at least one more war in November, and possibly other wars before it and those factors came together and we simply couldn't push past the resulting burn out.

Despite all of this, though, we did a really good job. I'm proud of our efforts and grateful to the staff for what they gave us.



The Jop -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/20/2015 21:30:07)

Maybe it motivated us temporarily, but when that runs out most people lose focus pretty quickly. [;)]



Brasca123 -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/20/2015 22:29:06)

regarding to this war, i gotta say it's the best event in DF history IMO, but i want to add what i found good, bad and some suggestions for future BIG wars, not to your average unlosable war

first of all, i'd like to thank the trust the staff put into us, even after we lost a 1kk war you still put up a 4kk to us because you believed that we could do it, and we almost did

the depht and the amount of events, ways to war, spceial war meter,removing our ways of fighting,special challenges among the way, real consequence for losing (instead of simply rebuilding falconreach again) and all were amazing, awesome job

but there are some things that were somewhat bad as well

to begin, the time just 1 month after a war war horrible, we were all tired, there were other wars happening and lucky day came together, that could not really be helped, it was just the calendar being evil at us, but be careful if it's not a war with a specific date like friday the 13th

also, the deadline at 7pm is pretty bad as well, i understand that you needed it at this time so that tomix could actually finish the cutscene, but i believe most of the community would not mind an ending that came 1 or 2 days later, if the war had ended at midnight the time would've been just right for us to win, as many have stated

so, i'd like to suggest a few things to make the next wars even better

the catapult stealing thing was awesome, however, since it was stolen from us, that means we can also steal it back, specially now that we know that it can be stolen, i sugest a counter based on the number of catapult minigames made after it was stolen, so that we actually get closer and closer to it until we actually get it back, which does not mean it cannot be stolen again of course

the bombing run however, i believe could be made a bit better, the only real usefulness from using it is because you don't need any attention and it's the least laggy, however, i believe since it's a dragon lord only feature that needs 35% to unlock it should be a tad bit better, right now the WPM you get from it is probably lower than doing footwaves with doomknight, so it could be better by, perhaps lowering the number of waves to 3, i believe the optimal WPM would be between supply run and footwaves, also bombing skeletons and slimes in a war against those crazy monster does feel a bit wrong

also, the thing about different drops is really nice, just like the merge shop, however, some people just had no use for the drops because a)they did not have a DA, 2) already had a fully upgraded doom weapon, c) did not actually use doom weapons, d) already maxed the resource out, because of this, getting a rare drop meant basically losing a defender medal, and some of them were even worth 0gold, so i suggest making a two-way merge shop, with different exchange rates, like 10 DM- 1 UDE or 1 UDE- 1 DM, like this you'd basically be changing your rare drop for a common drop, it should not be a big problem

lastly, one more thing that is not important only for the war, but for the game as a whole, would be to make the forums more acessible to everyone, i myself only got to know the existence of the forums because a friend told me, and that does make a big difference on the warring effort, just see the chat of the war thread, there were people with 20 kills in all other wars that got close to 600 in this one, feeling like a part of the community is really important right now, specially since we don't have the same numbers we had before, perhaps making something in the book of lore, or in talking to twilly recommending the forum in case you need help with gear or is lost within a quest or just need someone to talk to

please do keep in mind that i know that this is a huge chunk of work and cannot be done easily, the amount of sleep hours you guys must have lost for just this war must've been amazing, however, just like i know we could have done better in this war, i'm sure that the staff can do better as well, i've been playing AE games for 8 years already, i know that you can always improve the game and make it even better that it ever was, just don't faint from overworking, do big events like this once in a while, and when you do, do even better than now, i'm sure everyone here from the forums will be amazed at you guys

sorry for the long text, just wanted to show how much i appreciate all the effort that was put into this, and try to help making this game even better
battle on!

edit: oh i forgot one thing, the challenges are really nice, and boost our morale a lot, perhaps putting it on 90% instead of 75% will increase our chances of winning, everyone saw our WPM skyrocketing when we received word about the doom and destiny weapons



Arithonne -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/20/2015 23:02:43)

I'm a player that generally reads the forums but doesn't participate much, and I'd like to say that I really agree with Myra. Especially these parts:

quote:

What I want to say though: I feel that right now the consequences of wars are going in a direction that instead of rewarding the community for fighting, they are punishing us for not fighting enough. And it seems that players who fight the most are actually punished more than those who aren’t as active. Who is going to be affected by the curse the most? The people who play the most, right? Who is going to notice that Serenity is missing now? Those who play frequently and pay attention to the storyline, right? I feel that this is a mistake, I believe it is going to hurt the community and by extension, the game in the long run.

I never thought I would say this, but in my opinion the consequence is: Wars need to become less demanding. It is not my fault that there are fewer people playing the game, and I cannot replace them by just fighting harder and harder.
I feel burnt out. I have a full-time job and a social life, and those are not things I can or would like to change. If I keep feeling punished by wars for that, I will participate less and eventually I might stop participating. If this sounds huffy, I’m sorry, it’s not supposed to. It is honestly what I think will happen.


I generally contribute around 3,000 wave in the first week of a war. This war I did about 5,500. I pushed myself because I knew 4 million waves was going to be a stretch. I have 6 characters, all at level 80, largely off of experience gained in wars. I like wars; they're a nice mindless activity to do with my hands while I watch TV or listen to podcasts. I really dislike wars having consequences outside of storyline events (and even then not all wars) because I realize that no matter how much I contribute to a war, my contribution to the whole will always be negligible. I will never be able to be able to do the whole war myself, and if I keep getting punished for something out of my control I will end up quitting DF.

The only things I would say are necessary for wars are that any deadlines are announced well in advance, and that potential consequences be announced well in advance (caveat: only storyline consequences see previous paragraph for explanation).



Brasca123 -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 0:52:19)

Brasca's Brother here
I do know that I should just edit last post to say stuff that I want, but my experience is quite different than that of my bro so, heres my thing

I created my character 7 years ago (I think) and never once logged in the foruns (hence my lack of a forum account), because of that fact, I didn't knew that wars had a dead line. I just assumed that they were an easy way to make content meant to give the developers more time.

So first sugestion is to actually make a "how to war" tutorial in the game, so in some point at oaklore players would be introduced to wars, as in how long do they take, what are the waves clearing methods (I know this is basic and intuitive bear with me for a while), and the war screen, which bring my second sugestion:

Upgrade the war screen, instead of just "your waves" and "all the waves done" put a Waves Per Minute counter that updates itself on each hour, together with a "needed WPM" counter, this would reeeeeeally help us out, since as you would enter the war you could be sure if they need you or not based on the WPM. While members of the forum use it pretty much all the time, the non-forum users could even see if they are helping or not (just take in the time you're warring and your number of waves done and there you go: your contribuition to the war). I do believe that seeing "I'm doing about 1WPM" is a bit better than "I did 1001 waves so... that's 0,025 of the total waves number ... why do we still need so many?". Naturally some war could not have the counter of needed WPM since you guys would not like us knewing the total wave numbers. I still remember the Elemental Storm war, because of how the war screen was desinged I did thought we could lose it.

Finally a "need help? check these forum guides" button would help.

Thank you all for reading to the end.



Dr.Paradine -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 0:52:21)

Kinda curious here, as someone who has probably posted on these forums less than 15 times across all the different boards(and has lurked even less than that). WHEN did the topic of making Wars "SERIOUS BUSINESS!" and "HAVING MAJOR CONSEQUENCES!" pop up? A year ago? 2? 3? If something like that was posted as a serious discussion why the heck did it not get posted onto the main DF update page? Seriously something like that needs far more publicity. Had I known this type of thing would be happening when it was being decided you can bet your sweet that I'd be voting with a Big Fat NO. I was far more active a few years back then I am now and this war...and its consequences personally came out of left field. Yeah a little blurb said "Something bad will Happen to Serenity" but it said nothing like "Oh hai, I just wiped your existence out and its impossible for you to ever return because CONSEQUENCES!".

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Chaoshaper -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 0:57:39)

^ I believe the Major Consequences idea only really gained speed because of the fact that we have been... slow... as of the most recent wars, the Dragonrider war and the last Fridaythe 13th war. It was supposed to provide incentive to try even harder, or else we would suffer a consequence.



Dr.Paradine -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:01:17)

I trust the AE teams to not over their players like that. If true...IF then suddenly I feel like the rather large amounts of money I brought DC/Guardian/Star Captain seems incredibly wasted.

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The Hollow Soul -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:01:35)

quote:

this war...and its consequences personally came out of left field.

Well, I don't see how this war came out of left field, we were told in game during Febuary's Friday the 13th we were having another war in March.

All the build up about Serenity, while not in game, was covered in the DNs that she was having issues with the doom weapon haunting her and she was looking for help. The fact that she was tricked by the cultists isn't that shocking since she was going insane from lack of sleep and corruption from the Doom weapon. It was known that the Baron was wanting another body after we beat him the first time and he was after the cloak scrap. This wasn't "OMGZ nobody told us." It's all stuff that was out there for people to find if they looked.




Dr.Paradine -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:03:41)

I have not played in quite literally like...a year maybe 2. Until I remembered how much I enjoyed DF I generally forgot about it because of Life, the Universe, and everything. So for the past few days yeah I've been playing, yeah I fought in the war, but again aside from that little blurb I didn't really expect the ending at all.



Branl -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:04:47)

Dr.Paradine: The DF team can't really be blamed for this. The only way they can communicate with players is through the forums, and it's mostly filled with people so invested into the story, they need to make their own fanfictions and scenarios for their characters.

Parts of Book 2 and Book 3 in general just feels like those fanfictions brought to life.
Though again, I am not holding the DF team responsible for this. They can only see the opinions of these incredibly dedicated players, but not so much the opinions of the players who played the game because it wasn't super cereal. They saw the demand on the forums and they delivered. Simple as that.

TheHollowSoul: Not everyone reads the DNs. And even if that was in the game... the jump from the "cheerful, yet somewhat odd inkeeper" to "Becoming sleep deprived and slowly losing her sanity" to "Having her very existence erased in a disturbing deadspace-like fashion" was just far too sudden. it just felt like a bad fanfiction and I really see this game scaring off kids because of this.



kingbrando15 -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:06:45)

i myself would have like to seen this as well Dr.paradine myself sometimes visit the forums but i have never seen a discussion on making wars super serious and have MAJOR consequences id have voted a big HECK NO(personal opinion here). ash did say that alot of players asked for this but how much is alot? if it was 100-125 out of lets say 1000 or more(no idea on the numbers here i am guessing) that could be alot but in the large scale is kinda a minority(once again my opinion i am entitled to it and no i am not trying to be mean and i do appreciate the works the devs do) and what about the 875-900 that didn't know about it or would be against it? i dont know because its hard to say and sadly these are questions that may not have answers.



Dr.Paradine -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:07:00)

I can totally understand that and if I was capable of going full annoyed mode on this forum I would be lambasting the players who wanted tougher. Feels too much like the idiots over on the Warframe forums and their whining.

~Self-censoring is annoying but I do it because if I don't they'll do it for me and I don't like making the mods do more work on the forums than they have too.

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The Hollow Soul -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:07:16)

@Dr. Paradine, I don't mean to come off as rude, but that isn't the staff's fault that you stopped playing and didn't know the story coming into this war. For the people that played actively, this turn of events is a huge shock that something bad happened to Serenity. The staff can't stop progression of story just because people leave, if the player decide to come back it is up to them to pick up what they have missed and fill in the story they're missing.



Dr.Paradine -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:11:01)

Dude you were cool, nowhere even close to what I consider rude. You do make a good point but I think you're missing my point. A very very limited number of users/players bother to even join the forums. They're a minority of a minority. To consider what they want without seeming to try and draw attention to major changes besides perhaps a few paragraphs on the update page is...bad. That isn't to say you should ignore the minority but...always keep in mind that the forum population is always less than the gaming population.



The Hollow Soul -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:13:39)

Oh, no I get your point about trying to reach all players.
I was one of the people who suggested the deadline be put in the book of Lore for all players to see.



Brasca123 -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 1:30:46)

well, i personally like the more serious side of the story, i was a bit shocked with serenitys death? of course, never saw that coming, especially in that, completely impossible to be revived or being brought back to existence ever again, however, we did lose a 1kk war that lasted 1 week, we needed some sort of incentive to fight again, can you imagine it? what if seppy came back with another 20kk undead war, how much time would we take to finish it? 1 year? 2 years? the game could not develop like that, the staff with this war, was able to tell, that we still have some warmongering spirit on us, in those horrible conditions (tiredness, middle of the weak, deadline at 7pm, lost catapult and a bunch of others) almost won that war, it's sad to lose, it's sad to have consequences, but if you think seriously about it, serenity was one of the most underdeveloped characters in the game, we'll miss her, but at the same time, we did not lose anyone important to the storyline, but right now, we have a reason to get serious and win the next war in 2 days, or at least, those are my thoughts on the matter



KoibatlupeSnowager -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 4:05:11)

The only reason we had higher WPM at the start is because it was a weekend. That's all. After the weekend was over it dropped, because most people had school/work/various RL things to go to. I liked having multiple ways to war, especially since that meant it wasn't either footwaves or catapult. (My favorite way for this war was the supply raid. I dislike the catapult, it's too slow. I can get waves done faster with any of the armors I have access to on foot rather than with catapult. I also liked the bombing run and how perfection was not expected in the run (which required at most 33% of total on-ground monsters.))



Myra -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 4:31:47)

So. More unhappy thoughts. I’m sorry. I don’t want it to look like I’m not grateful to the staff for all their work on this war, because I am. It really was very well planned and implemented and it was clear that a lot of effort went into it.

But I’ve thought about it for a bit, and if you ask me now if I want another war like this in the future, I’d say no. And if you ask me if I want to be treated with kid gloves instead, and never have horrible consequences like this for losing, I’d say yes. This is just one person’s opinion of course – but I have fought in the war from the start to the end, and I have read the war threads, and it seems to me that I’m not the only one feeling this way.

quote:

I feel 4 million was a good amount for us.

I can’t speak for everyone, but by now I can say it definitely wasn’t a good amount for me. It was an amount that made me feel overburdened and pressured into fighting until I didn’t enjoy it anymore. I felt like I would let the community down if I did not give it all I had, and when we lost it felt like all this effort was for nothing. And there was a lot of similar sentiment in the war thread – look at the posts in the last 24 hours before the deadline. Yes, we came close to winning – but at the price of many players who had fought very hard losing their enjoyment and possibly their motivation for future wars.

I know that when the next war comes around, I will not do this again. I won’t lose sleep over wars any more, in the literal and figurative sense. I will join when I have some free time, and fight 50-100 waves per day – maybe a bit more if I have a personal goal like a level-up or an item that requires resources dropping from the war. But if it starts to look bad, I will NOT put in extra time and effort. Before I would have frowned at this attitude – but I have to find a way to keep wars enjoyable for me personally. Because if I don’t enjoy them anymore, I will eventually stop participating altogether and that would be all the more damaging to our chances of winning.

Now, if more people decide to handle wars like this, but the amounts of waves and/or the time limits stay the same, our losing streak will grow longer. If the majority of players want it to be like that, I have to accept that. But I don’t find it desirable.

I wasn’t sure myself yesterday, but now I am. I want smaller wars, or time limits that are longer than one week, because that makes sense for a smaller community and it will prevent burnout.

And another thing I would like to discuss now is the specific story-related consequences of this war, because yesterday we did not know what exactly would happen:

quote:

The threat of Serenity's life in contrast, is merely the life of an innocent being put in danger for the sake of being put in danger.


On this I agree 100%. I really dislike the “damsel in distress” trope, and I honestly feel that this was an example for it. If I didn’t know that DF is a game that for the most part handles female characters really well, I’d even call it an example of women in refrigerators.

If a character dies because that is how the story goes, that is sad, but okay. If handled well, it can give stories more depth and make them more memorable (also see: Tomix saga).

But if a character death is actually preventable, and occurs because of something the players did or didn’t achieve, as in this case, I think it leads down a path that I really don’t want the game to go down.
It is almost like the game is taking an NPC hostage, and if we fail to achieve the goal that was set for us, then in a way we are made responsible for their death. We could have saved them and failed. This is the one aspect of this war that I absolutely did not like, and unlike the things I discussed yesterday, this is not something I would have praised if we had won. I’d be relieved that it didn’t happen, but I’d still not appreciate that this was used as a “motivator”. I do not want to be guilt tripped into doing things.

This is definitely not something I want to ever happen again. If a war is supposed to have unpleasant consequences, make it something that hurts the players directly, not by hurting others. I don’t know – your character was injured in the war, so you will have 10% less HP for a couple of weeks. Or you get a month of no access to your house, because that part of town was damaged and needs repairing. That would be a pain in the neck, not being able to use the armor closet and so on. But it would not make us feel like we were to blame for a character’s death.



megakyle777 -> RE: Serenity Before The Storm Analysis Thread (3/21/2015 4:43:17)

I agree 100%. I put in my all in this war and to have that effort be for nothing-nay, to be outright mocked- hurts me. I know I too will not be taking part this heavily again.



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