Hi All,

We're making a few changes this set, to try to balance some of the things we've observed with our past changes &etc.

--ATTACK CHANGES--

1) After much observance, we've concluded that the attack changes from a number of resets ago are not achieving the desired goals to the degree that we'd hoped; I'd say they half do what we want, but half don't; thus we will REVERT the special attack changes ( to be as it were originally. This means that the RAMPING DAMAGES are NO LONGER IN EFFECT!

1a) Special Attack Losses
The special attack losses will *then* be modified to be lowered by X% per attack in Y amount of time; we're currently working off X = 0.7% (multiplier of 0.993^(# of hits)) in 60 seconds, but final values may be tweaked with testing - any changes will be announced; this value means that one hit per second will result in a reduction of about 1/3 damage by the end of a minute and from thence forward. The purpose of this is to try to slow down killruns a little bit.

THIS WILL GO IN ALL SERVERS *EXCEPT* FFA AS THEY ROLL IN. We realize FFA is a special case where people just want to burn turns fast =/

1b) Military Damage
Military damage will have a multiplier added which will adjust damage based on square root of networthA/networthB; the larger opponent will have the multiplier applied to their losses; this means for a target half your size, you will lose 40% more; for 10x, about 3x more

--SPY CHANGES--

2a) Clan Admin News
Clan Admin News will now have spyop-related news only show up when the clan member has observed it - ie when they login and see it on their Main page. This should eliminate some of the pre-warning via clan admin news, which was not its purpose

2b) Spy DR will kick in a bit sooner, but will build more slowly. One of these sets we'll find a good balance =/

2c) Minimum chance of success for spying will be *slightly* raised

-- BUILDING COSTS --

3) Building costs are being tweaked back somewhat, as they were perhaps over-nerfed

Building costs will change from:
3*(max(1,land-1500)^1.05)+1500
to:
3*(max(1,land-750)^1.03)+1500


-- RESTARTS --

4) We're modifying restarting so that you keep some percentage of techs; we'll start with 20% and see where it goes from there.


That's the plan for now; As always, leave comments, thoughts and concerns here :) And bugs & suggestions on the B&S Board



These sets will go into servers as they reset, starting with this Alliance round. Note the FFA exception in point 1.a.

Regards,

-qzjul & the EE Dev Team

-----------------------

NB:

I softened the military damage multiplier to cube root and reduced the fast-DR time-length to 45 seconds after more extended testing in alphaffa.

zomg look at all this

O_O

Tech on restarts!? Doesn't that make techers even stronger for war then they already are? :o

unless they were all SDI and you chem kill! then they get no tech!

thank you.

wouldnt this make techers weaker since countries will be starting with tech and not needing to buy as much?

otherwise these change are stupid, more nerfs to help people who arent good be able to compete with people who are good. so now we have made it practically impossible to kill anyone with a smartphone unless we want to burn triple the amount of turns, and if the target is smaller apparently up to triple the amount of military losses.

and spy changes that dont actually fix the real problem. how about some changes to spal that rewards players for carrying a larger number of total spies versus some scrub who drops a bunch of acres to up his spal so he can do ops on otherwise superior countries.

That's a good point. Most wars are early I figure and in order to get the tech needed to do well and keep it for your next restart I figure a techer would be an attractive option. But I haven't thought this through much :P

now for my opinions.

I dont like the tech idea, for one it means you basically have to kill a big tyr/techer war country's restart straight away, if you don't you know the country will be selling that tech off helping the country to grow quicker.

Special attack losses - while I can see why you have done this, I do not agree with it, it will not help smaller alliances, it will just mean more people can wall with smartphones and such, meaning the larger alliances will be able to have more wallers which I think is the aim.

military damage?? you loose more the bigger you are? that makes no sense, if you are bigger you should probably mean you would loose less attacking a smaller country, If you are smaller you should loose more. I do not like this one bit.

Spy changes - no opinion ether way.

Building costs -- meh my countries suck, kill kill kill!!! lol

oh and these changes are going to promote early wars even more, nobody wants to hit later in the set when breaks are 2-3m and you have breakers loosing 40% more military on top of the 200k+ per hit they were losing before the changes.

My take (I may have misinterpreted some of the changes).

1a) Penalising fast hitting is lame.
1b) Penalising good players is lame. This encourages lemmings. Lemmings are lame. Good players will stop spending time and effort building a decent country when they realise it can be easily ground down with lemmings.

2a) Good change.
2b) Let's see how this goes.
2c) SPAL's are getting ridiculous. Increasing minimum success rates exasperates the problem. Lame. Ideally, MORE failures are required to keep spals in check. Destructive ops are overpowered. eg, a 20k acre country should not be able to lose 6k buildings to 25 destructive ops from a 6k acre country (as happened to me this reset) despite having similar spals. Ridiculous.

In general, these changes tend to pander to mediocre players/alliances. Rubber band FTL.

Also, out of curiousity, you didn't play in SoL this reset did you qzjul?

Perhaps, but the way wars are now is much less balanced than in mid-E2025, partially due to the way the larger alliance by TNW tends to pull away exponentially after about a week at war; you can see this time and again in the war graphs; this change is, in effect, an attempt to put a handbreak on that tendency, to keep the war competitive a little bit longer, keeping wars more interesting longer, and keeping it more competitive longer

heh nope, I've never played in SoL; i tend to be in Evo, though i was pretty inactive there this set =(

Because mashing the 'fast attack' button requires pro skills. Remove the button and force people to take a few extra keystrokes/clicks.

Does this apply to all attacks? So if you are close to 12 times larger than a target, landgrabbing him will make you lose 8%*sqrt(12)=27.7% of the jets sent? Do off. allies also lose >27% of their jets sent helping (~=27.7%*25%=6.9%)?

I assume these changes will be implemented along with the other servers when they restart except FFA?

It would be more appropriate to reduce the damage done by the attacker. So using the same formula, but swap the denominator with the numberator. So a person 12 times your size that hits you, results in sqrt(12/1) = 2.77x less damage than normal. Assuming on average you lose 5% per defend, instead you lose 5/2.77= 1.8% approx.

This can actualy help to slow down KR too if opponents are larger instead of using that multiplier thing you mentioned.

Why does a bigger country lose more attacking a small one? That's just ridiculous.

qzjul doesnt like bullies.

You can still do fast kills, but it means there's a trade off. Spend 1000turns to get it done quickly, or 500 turns but more slowly. Either way, 10-20 second kills are stupid, especially considering the defender lag..

Yah but how many clans can get 1k turns for a warchat? RD had troubles often enough going far past there. Smaller participation clans wont have a shot at that. And considering the speed that some people can wall it seems like unless you have a lot more turns that some people will be unkillable.

Imagine trying to kill a suicider who's intentionally staying low networth to exploit this.

Comments on changes:

--ATTACK CHANGES--
1) Reverting the ramping up. Good!

1a) Special Attack Losses. (0.7% Population DR for 60 seonds) Good! It is exactly as I proposed and analyzed in a thread somewhere. Or maybe it was in private messages.

1b) Military Damage. I'm concerned about this one, because it wasn't stated whether a lower military guy attacking a larger one will suffer LESS losses. If I attack someone twice my size, then the multiplier becomes sqrt(1/2) = 70.7%, which means he takes 30% less unit losses. Does it work that way for smaller attacking bigger countries too? If I attack someone 10x my size (i.e suicider), sqrt(1/10) is about 31%, I lose 69% less units for each suicide allowing me to suicide even more effectively.

This change might be ok if Medical attack affects the attacking force, but right now, Medical tech only works when defending, so we cannot negate this damage with tech.



--SPY CHANGES--

2a) Clan Admin News - Don't think this is a good change. This means it is easier to Rush a kill. This also means it is easier to FS without warning the enemy. Not sure if this change is a good idea. It empowers FS even further.

2b) Spy DR will kick in a bit sooner, but will build more slowly. Unsure what this means, but ok.

2c) Minimum chance of success for spying will be *slightly* raised. Does this apply only for non-harmful, or harmful as well? Spy ops like Bomb buildings and Steal tech are already amazingly powerful on solo servers.


3) Building cost nerf. I think this is fine.


4) Restarts having 20% original tech. Should be ok as well, but is this 20% of the tech%, or 20% of the tech points? Because this means a restart can quickly sell off 1/4 of the tech points and have A LOT of money to build up very quickly on an extremely high restarting BPT.

like Xin, I'm curious about the military damage.

does it mean when a smaller country attacks a larger one the losses of the bigger country are even more? if so that turns growing into a handicap

Part of the problem I noticed with wars these past few sets was how easy it was to lemming larger countries..... if this multiplier also were able to work in reverse it would be great ie: a small country hitting a larger one would see the smaller country have higher losses compared to the large country it's attacking.

there are lots of problems with current wars silver.

The largest problem the server has is it's player base. When Earth was 2.5K players we didn't have these problems....

games more fun when there is a possibility of living :P

and yet more changes for clueless alliances.

show me some 10-20s KR. What locket said. Find 1,000 turns every chat.

You havnt seen 10-20 second kill runs h2orich? Rd did a few. They werent super common but we did enough of them. A really fast one was closing in on 15 seconds at times for us.

Maybe the answer is obvious but why stack so many changes? Why not play with a few a set? Also some of these changes are the opposite of what I believe is intended.

1) Removing Attack Ramp means it's easier to kill a country.
1a) Special Attack Losses means it's harder to kill a country.
1b) Military Damage means it's harder by way of expense to kill a small country. Restarts are small countries.

1 and 1a likely balanced out. Why introduce 1b which if Military Damage works both ways you have made lemming attacks the proper way to war. Not to mention you have added more difficulty in killing.

In addition that will empower restarts which you have buffed considerably with tech changes and in a small portion with reduced build costs. I can't wait to get my hands on my costly to kill restart.

Stacking unknown effects on top of unknown effects seems like a poor design philosophy.
Cancel 1b.


2a) Clan Admin News completely Empowers the FS. I thought a primary request of alliances has been to weaken the FS. While this surely is not the proper way to weaken the FS why is there nothing to counteract this change?


Please also some clarification on increased success rate on spyops(which ones?)and Military Damage?

qzjul, did you made some math before doing this stupid changes?

Just a simple math. I start with avg 3.3% civ loses per attack (since most KRs is about 200-250 attacks).
With same 3.3% we now add this new thing. Now you need about 600 attacks to kill country in under 1 min. What it means? Everyone, who can come online with less than 1 min is now unkillable (in 1 warchat, you will need 2-3, maybe even 4 to get him). Are you trying to make ppl have no life? Sorry, but this wont work. Almost all ppl will leave if you will try to push them to spend all time in this game. You will stay with 50 idiots, who will try to kill eachother:)
I really recommend you to rollback this change and stay with old rules (ramp up) or old old rules (just simple percent).
The ramping damage was a cool idea and i dont know why you dont like it.
Quick google drive prove link (you can play yourself with it if you want) - http://goo.gl/QdOb3T

Also, 1b is also fluff change. Why should attacker lose more? Hardly more! I dont like this change at all, but with this numbers it just stupid.

Spy & building cost changes is ok.

And 20% tech seems a bit much for me. 10% seems better.


And here i want again to bring attention to organisation problems. You are telling us "desired goals to the degree that we'd hoped". Where i can read this desired goals? You never told us what you want to make. And why. There is no discussion about your goals and our goals. Maybe our goals is different and we dont want your goals? Should you make some polls about changes? Or something?


Ok, and now just a idea for you. As i told infinite times, 2013 is far from 1999. You really need new aproach today. If you really want to improve killruns, implement defence orders (i.e. buy 100K troops if pop less than 10K) and block countires from doing anything, if they was attacked less than 1 minute. This will everyone feel in same position. It will be just mind games. Not current "ah! you cant login faster than 1 min - DIE fluffER!!!". Even thought i can login faster than 1 min, i still feel this as discrimination.

It is their game. My goal or your goal arent overly important if we are not a huge majority.

Is it true that it takes 600 hits to do a 1minute kill though now?

Ofc majority decides, but well, if they want to play this game alone, its not hard to achive - just close access and thats all.

Well, my table is open by link http://goo.gl/QdOb3T
You can try it yorself. Idk if it will be 600 attacks or not, only game will show. But as i see the current game state - yes, you need 600 attack to kill in less than 1 min. And well, if it will be high pop republic, you will need even more attacks to kill. Maybe more than 1K, who knows?

The intention is to make the average kill times around 3-5 minutes. The math is sound.

Everyone should have a chance to wall, and 3-5 minutes is sufficient for this. Currently, very few people can wall within 30 seconds and this gives too much advantage to a select few people.

Target selection is more important now, watching when the target is usually online, etc. This also adds more focus on crippling countries over killing, also another desired outcome.

So, qz want to give them even more advantage?



Ok, give me 10 best wallers and welcome to "target selection" club. I wonder, how you will watch usually online, when we will show up in 30 seconds after you start KR. Now, having 24/7 nolife ppl is important. And no target selection will help you.
And yes, with this nolife ppl you will need to cripple them, because you basically cant kill them.

If you really want to implement 1b. You would have to make medical tech to be more advantageous and to help in offensive grabs too rather than just help on defence.

QZ did you boost the lemming because we beat you down then grew too fast?

Heh, changes just on time for the new Alliance reset. :}

Since this is "1b)", I guess that mean it applies only on special attacks?

Speaking of restarts, I think it's possible that people who self-delete get nothing in their new country, but people who are deleted for rules violations get a full slate of turns. Can someone confirm this and if true can it be fixed?

This was the case before the change. Now, more normal players can have a chance as well.

h2o, there were many KRs that went from 10-30 seconds or so. Unless you are on your pc/phone at the time, that's pretty damn tough to wall...This gives the average player a better chance to actually wall and have fun.

The spy change was needed, imo. I don't see how it strengthens the FS...it definitely helps with walling and lengthening the wars, which is important, imo. Basically, you can't have a few people with admin access and no lives babysitting their members. Sounds good to me.

-ATTACK CHANGES--

1) Interesting change. 30s kills and lengthened wars will be a change that will take more thinking that just pure numbers and mashing a button/browser glitch. Larger countries lose more... not reflective of the real world, but it's a game. It's mean to be fun.

--SPY CHANGES--

2a) Babysitting clan admin and testing those about to be hit will no longer be an issue. Makes sense to me.


2b) Meh... balance away

2c) See 2b

-- BUILDING COSTS --

3) Moar maths!? Let see how it translates in game :)


-- RESTARTS --

4) Awesome... more powerful restarts = more interesting wars. Makes long drawn out wars perhaps more interesting... for which side depends on the amount of roflstomping and the ingenuity of the War Mods.

Overall it is nice to see some changes and I am glad the game moderators are constantly thinking. How it translates into game play will be determined by interpretation as well as how quickly and accurately alliance leadership adjusts to take optimal advantage of the changes.

Thank you for the efforts!

HAVE WE DITCHED THE CAPTHCATHCA'S YET?

Normal players will still have no chance. KR still will be fast enough to not let normal ppl come online. Only 24/7 ppl will benefit from this change.
On other hand - we killed Dragons original in 1 KR. It took alot of organization, but we was fast enough. Now you need 600 or even more (wallers now should pay more attention to residental tech lol) hits to kill him. And its kinda impossible to make as much hits as fast. It will need like 50 ppl hitting same time:)



Average player comes from time to time and play turns. He will not even be interested in walling. I want to hear some average player, who are not trying to wall now, but will try to wall in hypothetically 5 min KR? Someone?



-------------------- QUESTION TO QZJUL -------------------
Btw, i just wonder, does this apply to missile attacks? CM rushes is also needs to be 3 min?
Also, does this apply to mix of GS/BR, like 100 GS/100 BR? What will be multiplier? 100 or 200?

Look Duna, more people being able to wall is a good thing. 99% of people I know own a mobile phone and is able to logon within 5 minutes of a phone call.

But can even 50% of people logon within 10-20 secs to wall a 30 sec run, even when notified by a phone call? Nope!

If you can figure out which country is Dragon's, then by all means cripple him instead of killing. 600 turns to kill? Spend 200 to cripple instead and move on.

Edit: I think this will make the game more interesting instead of the boring "kill kill kill kill kill" mentality that warchat leaders seem to have, instead of picking who to kill, and who to cripple, and who to ignore. A warchat leader can decide if he wants to spend more turns to kill faster, or take less turns to kill at the risk of a potential waller.

Consider also that because all special attacks undergo this damage DR, this also means you can somewhat wall cripple runs as well, since you would do more damage on the same amount of turns if you do them slower.

Under the old special attack damage rules, didn't far fewer c-sites die? But it was easier to kill buildings to start with.

Xinhuan, able = will. Almost all ppl who i know, can wall now or wont wall at all. There is not much ppl, who will benefit from this change.
All this "strategy" is good, when you have about same alliances in a war. As soon as you see 24/7 no life SoL on other side, you will just think about "meh, ill call in all allies i can to kill them and just move on".
Its very stupid to balance KR, when most ppl coming time is different.
Oh yes, about cripple. As i see, this will apply to AB also, so you will need about 300-400 attack to cripple Dragon also (or break him alot of times with high tank amount).

I dont want to play in game, where your online time decides if you are wining or losing.

i have never seen so much mental masturbation and bullfluff...

play it for a set and then fluff. but till you play it for a set you just don't know how fun or not so fun it will be.

the fun is how to take advantage of the changes to fit your playing style ( net / war )

I don't know what's with you Duna, but last set, I only had to wall twice, and I spent less than 5-10 minutes per day on my country. The 2 times I had to wall, I simply logged in, bought units and waited a bit, maybe 10 minutes max.

In this case, winning has nothing to do with my online time, but more with my willingness to _remain contactable_ for walling.

I'd actually be interested to try that; perhaps next set if this seems to be overpowered one way or another. Iterative process!



I suppose from one sense. However, it was never our intent to allow the clan-news to be a pre-warning, more as a log of what's happened. It also removes that grey-area issue of whether or not we allow people to scrape their own clan news with a script, while not actually playing turns....

No, this isn't for lemmings =/

If you look at most wars with even numbers on both sides, the war is only close for less than week typically; In E2025 the wars (to me at least?) seemed to stay close for longer, at least assuming similar numbers...

how about night? Was it at night? Does everyone needs to wake up at night? Thats all very personal. Yes, its more or less depends on desires of someone, but still takes more time than needed.