Most of us have expressed an opinion one way or another about these new Era rules. FF seems very reluctant to make ANY change to them without a "general concensus" , which in "polite speak" is simply a way to tell us they arent going to do a * thing to change them any time in the near future. With a group of players as diverse in culture and play style as we are, a task such as reaching a "general concensus" is nearly impossible, and FF knows this.
So instead, I am simply going to express what it is that I like and dislike about these rules and why. Then I will propose some changes and modifications to these existing rules that would make the game seem much more enjoyable for me.
I dont expect everyone to have the same opinions as myself, but at least we can ( hopefully ) get a constructive discussion going about what we feel needs to be changed.
Proposed changes to the Era rules
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WaywardChampion
- Posts: 150
- Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:06 pm
Proposed changes to the Era rules
Last edited by GrandEmperorKurts on Fri Nov 03, 2017 11:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited word to make it properly filtered by forum's profanity filter. - GEK
Reason: Edited word to make it properly filtered by forum's profanity filter. - GEK
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WaywardChampion
- Posts: 150
- Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:06 pm
Re: Proposed changes to the Era rules
What I like about the Era rules.
1) The Faith point cap is a good idea, but it may still need some slight adjustments.
Perhaps base it off of the number of villages that can be held by a player with a cap of 20k/village at CP rank. This works best if the number of villages is limited to something reasonable.
2) The ability to cap or raze a faction members village makes it much easier both to hand off villages to newer members, and also to counter cap a village under attack.
What I dislike about the Era rules.
1) The enormous cost in flags to make many of the parish guilds, particularly the defensive ones, like ballista and turrets. In my opinion the price should be set to about twice what the older Age rules were.
2) The ability to raze being restricted to the rank of Prince or Crown Prince.
This just leaves new players at the mercy of the trolls and abusive players, as well as making it easy for an enemy to spawn endless waves of alts into your county thereby limiting your ability to expand due to prohibitively expensive costs in either honor (if you cap them) or gold ( buying a charter in another county). I will suggest once again that rather than have the ability to raze be a privilage of rank, that it be earned through the completion of a set number of quests. I believe that 100 completed quests and a rank of knight would be sufficient.
3)The increased cost in Honor to raze lower ranked players. ( As to why, read dislike #2 )
4) The maximum size of factions is too small.
I play with an independant group whose membership often exceeds 40 players, the 20 member limit is just too cumbersome.
5) The limited number of factions allowed into a house.
In general I liked the idea, but after some though I have discovered a way for a group of 200 players to exploit these small house sizes to win EVERY Era on a new server within the first 10 minutes of it opening, and they need never hold any counties or kingdoms to do it. How? Simply use Chivalry cards to rank 40 players to squire and the rest of their players to bondsman. Then form forty factions of five members each and have two of their factions join each house. Each house would then be under their control and even if they never hold any capitols, no one else can ever win an Era.
Given the number of Chivalry cards that have been gained by many players on the AI worlds, this is not as unlikely to happen as it sounds. It would simply be a matter of finding the right players and coordinating the effort.
I believe that increasing the house size to seven factions and making the number of available houses be directly proportional to the number of active players, thereby allowing the number of houses to exceed the current limit of 20, would be a good solution to prevent this sort of exploit. Houses then could be added or removed upon each Era change based upon the current number of active players.
1) The Faith point cap is a good idea, but it may still need some slight adjustments.
Perhaps base it off of the number of villages that can be held by a player with a cap of 20k/village at CP rank. This works best if the number of villages is limited to something reasonable.
2) The ability to cap or raze a faction members village makes it much easier both to hand off villages to newer members, and also to counter cap a village under attack.
What I dislike about the Era rules.
1) The enormous cost in flags to make many of the parish guilds, particularly the defensive ones, like ballista and turrets. In my opinion the price should be set to about twice what the older Age rules were.
2) The ability to raze being restricted to the rank of Prince or Crown Prince.
This just leaves new players at the mercy of the trolls and abusive players, as well as making it easy for an enemy to spawn endless waves of alts into your county thereby limiting your ability to expand due to prohibitively expensive costs in either honor (if you cap them) or gold ( buying a charter in another county). I will suggest once again that rather than have the ability to raze be a privilage of rank, that it be earned through the completion of a set number of quests. I believe that 100 completed quests and a rank of knight would be sufficient.
3)The increased cost in Honor to raze lower ranked players. ( As to why, read dislike #2 )
4) The maximum size of factions is too small.
I play with an independant group whose membership often exceeds 40 players, the 20 member limit is just too cumbersome.
5) The limited number of factions allowed into a house.
In general I liked the idea, but after some though I have discovered a way for a group of 200 players to exploit these small house sizes to win EVERY Era on a new server within the first 10 minutes of it opening, and they need never hold any counties or kingdoms to do it. How? Simply use Chivalry cards to rank 40 players to squire and the rest of their players to bondsman. Then form forty factions of five members each and have two of their factions join each house. Each house would then be under their control and even if they never hold any capitols, no one else can ever win an Era.
Given the number of Chivalry cards that have been gained by many players on the AI worlds, this is not as unlikely to happen as it sounds. It would simply be a matter of finding the right players and coordinating the effort.
I believe that increasing the house size to seven factions and making the number of available houses be directly proportional to the number of active players, thereby allowing the number of houses to exceed the current limit of 20, would be a good solution to prevent this sort of exploit. Houses then could be added or removed upon each Era change based upon the current number of active players.
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WaywardChampion
- Posts: 150
- Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:06 pm
Re: Proposed changes to the Era rules
Changes to the game that I would like to propose.
1) Treat the monking of votes and excommunicating an enemy the same way as you would an attacking army.
One of the most used exploits of this game is being able to monk votes and excomm an enemy while under the protection of either ID or the peace timer. This is one of the primary reasons that there are so many trolls and multi-account cheaters who use this tactic to take parishes and counties from enemy players. Simply by treating such actions the same as you would an attacking army you could eliminate much of the effectiveness of this type of exploit.
2) Implement a Gold capacity limit in a manner simular to the FP capacity limit.
It seems like the strategy for many players is simply to Horde all their gold, honor and FP until sometime in the 4th or 5th age (Era) and essentially use their monks and gold to "buy out" the map. This makes for a REALLY boring game in these Ages (eras) and I believe to be the primary reason maps lose many of the otherwise active players who had actually had an active role in those maps development. ( As opposed to those who had been living off the largess of the active players and doing nothing but farm. )
I.E -> Reward activity, not passivity. Passive players generaly dont play cards. ( or your bills )
3) Place an absolute limit of 15 villages available to CP's in EVERY Era.
Having one or two factions being able to completly hold all the kingdoms and counties can effectively kill the map in these later Era's. Limiting the number of villages encourages greater activity levels, and provides more opportunities for new players to partipate in that maps events. Thereby refreshing the player base on maps in the later Era's.
4) Limit the range of which an army can send an attack.
One of the strangest features of this game is the ability for an army to attack any location on the map from any location on the map. Even in modern RL this is generaly not possible due to many political and logistic factors. The idea that they could do this with medieval age technology is just laughable. Limiting the range of which an army could attack would add an interesting new factor in how wars are fought on Era rules maps and add a whole new element of strategic planning to this game.
To do this, I would suggest that the honor circle be used as the base of an armies range and the logistics skill be used to determine a multiplier to that range. ( As opposed to being used to determine the speed of captains ) The range could then be modified by one of the Outrider cards to extend that range further.
5) Increase the rate at which FP is generated.
It seems to me that most players wait until they have a nearly full FP capacity before they are willing to engage in a war or even do many of the monk quests. Increasing the FP rate would provide a greater incentive to actually use those fp earlier in the game, thereby increasing the overall activity level on the map. It would also allow for a defeated enemy to recover more quickly, creating a much more dynamic map, and holding our players interest longer.
1) Treat the monking of votes and excommunicating an enemy the same way as you would an attacking army.
One of the most used exploits of this game is being able to monk votes and excomm an enemy while under the protection of either ID or the peace timer. This is one of the primary reasons that there are so many trolls and multi-account cheaters who use this tactic to take parishes and counties from enemy players. Simply by treating such actions the same as you would an attacking army you could eliminate much of the effectiveness of this type of exploit.
2) Implement a Gold capacity limit in a manner simular to the FP capacity limit.
It seems like the strategy for many players is simply to Horde all their gold, honor and FP until sometime in the 4th or 5th age (Era) and essentially use their monks and gold to "buy out" the map. This makes for a REALLY boring game in these Ages (eras) and I believe to be the primary reason maps lose many of the otherwise active players who had actually had an active role in those maps development. ( As opposed to those who had been living off the largess of the active players and doing nothing but farm. )
I.E -> Reward activity, not passivity. Passive players generaly dont play cards. ( or your bills )
3) Place an absolute limit of 15 villages available to CP's in EVERY Era.
Having one or two factions being able to completly hold all the kingdoms and counties can effectively kill the map in these later Era's. Limiting the number of villages encourages greater activity levels, and provides more opportunities for new players to partipate in that maps events. Thereby refreshing the player base on maps in the later Era's.
4) Limit the range of which an army can send an attack.
One of the strangest features of this game is the ability for an army to attack any location on the map from any location on the map. Even in modern RL this is generaly not possible due to many political and logistic factors. The idea that they could do this with medieval age technology is just laughable. Limiting the range of which an army could attack would add an interesting new factor in how wars are fought on Era rules maps and add a whole new element of strategic planning to this game.
To do this, I would suggest that the honor circle be used as the base of an armies range and the logistics skill be used to determine a multiplier to that range. ( As opposed to being used to determine the speed of captains ) The range could then be modified by one of the Outrider cards to extend that range further.
5) Increase the rate at which FP is generated.
It seems to me that most players wait until they have a nearly full FP capacity before they are willing to engage in a war or even do many of the monk quests. Increasing the FP rate would provide a greater incentive to actually use those fp earlier in the game, thereby increasing the overall activity level on the map. It would also allow for a defeated enemy to recover more quickly, creating a much more dynamic map, and holding our players interest longer.
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WaywardChampion
- Posts: 150
- Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:06 pm
Re: Proposed changes to the Era rules
The last thing that I would like to propose is a simple change in what seems to be FF's unpublished internal policy regarding accounts from regions with blocked IP addresses.
In those regions where IP addresss are traceable, we are required to pay a token for each active account originating from a common IP source on each world that we play. This, rather unfairly, doesnt seem to apply to regions with blocked Ip adresses.
What I propose is for FF to simply concider all IP addresses from the same blocked (untraceable) region to be originating from a common IP source. ( Which they in effect are )
Then apply that exact same policy used for common IP adresses to accounts from those regions with blocked IP addresses. The exact same policy which FF has already published, and which all other players are required to abide by.
I believe that this would eliminate the vast majority of the multi-account cheating that is currently destroying this game, and all FF has to do is actually enforce their own published rules.
In those regions where IP addresss are traceable, we are required to pay a token for each active account originating from a common IP source on each world that we play. This, rather unfairly, doesnt seem to apply to regions with blocked Ip adresses.
What I propose is for FF to simply concider all IP addresses from the same blocked (untraceable) region to be originating from a common IP source. ( Which they in effect are )
Then apply that exact same policy used for common IP adresses to accounts from those regions with blocked IP addresses. The exact same policy which FF has already published, and which all other players are required to abide by.
I believe that this would eliminate the vast majority of the multi-account cheating that is currently destroying this game, and all FF has to do is actually enforce their own published rules.
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Bernd von Habsburg
- Posts: 49
- Joined: Thu May 08, 2014 9:18 pm
Re: Proposed changes to the Era rules
You know what's even funnier? All that is supposed to help new players, which otherwhise would get razed due to paranoia, according to them.2) The ability to raze being restricted to the rank of Prince or Crown Prince.
This just leaves new players at the mercy of the trolls and abusive players, as well as making it easy for an enemy to spawn endless waves of alts into your county thereby limiting your ability to expand due to prohibitively expensive costs in either honor (if you cap them) or gold ( buying a charter in another county). I will suggest once again that rather than have the ability to raze be a privilage of rank, that it be earned through the completion of a set number of quests. I believe that 100 completed quests and a rank of knight would be sufficient.
3)The increased cost in Honor to raze lower ranked players. ( As to why, read dislike #2 )
Meanwhile Firefly only unlocked new counties in the middle of the second age in USA 4 and of course no charters spawned, so capturing new players is the only way for houses to secure their Provinces and Countries.
I don't even....
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Lord Alacrity
- Posts: 813
- Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:30 pm
- Location: Firefly
Re: Proposed changes to the Era rules
This doesn't seem easy to me... Organizing a group of 200 players is no small task.I have discovered a way for a group of 200 players to exploit these small house sizes to win EVERY Era on a new server within the first 10 minutes of it opening, and they need never hold any counties or kingdoms to do it. How? Simply use Chivalry cards to rank 40 players to squire and the rest of their players to bondsman.
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Lord Alacrity
- Posts: 813
- Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:30 pm
- Location: Firefly
Re: Proposed changes to the Era rules
WaywardChampion wrote:The last thing that I would like to propose is a simple change in what seems to be FF's unpublished internal policy regarding accounts from regions with blocked IP addresses.
In those regions where IP addresss are traceable, we are required to pay a token for each active account originating from a common IP source on each world that we play. This, rather unfairly, doesnt seem to apply to regions with blocked Ip adresses.
What I propose is for FF to simply concider all IP addresses from the same blocked (untraceable) region to be originating from a common IP source. ( Which they in effect are )
Then apply that exact same policy used for common IP adresses to accounts from those regions with blocked IP addresses. The exact same policy which FF has already published, and which all other players are required to abide by.
I believe that this would eliminate the vast majority of the multi-account cheating that is currently destroying this game, and all FF has to do is actually enforce their own published rules.
There seem to be a variety of rumors floating around, some hold that all of Russia shares a single IP address or other similarly impossible things. I'm unsure as to what is meant by a "region with a blocked IP" so I can assure you we have no secret internal policy about it.
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DekeYoungAtlanta
- Posts: 1002
- Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:18 pm
The early push to Page is critical in a server launch
The early push to Page is critical in a server launch. On USA-4 there were 4 or 5 off server political blocks pushing for a fast start and the race to page. Actually it was a race to multiple pages so we could create factions for the sole purpose of locking up multiple houses. I will go back and check my records, but my memory was that all 20 houses were taken inside of 3-4 days.
Afterwards, players with no house banner were targets for the select few that controlled the houses. It did not matter if you were in a faction, we raided your flags and took over your parishes regardless. My group was the least organized of the power blocks and we managed to lock down 3 houses early. I brought along 10-12 players from my USA-3 faction by myself. I can see a 200 account (not going into details on accounts vs. players here) power block prepared for a server launch predetermined with starting locations, players who are going to be pushed to page, other players who are standing by to join the faction created by the page, and the Houses they want to lock down.
My group had no difficulties at all populating a faction with players and locking down a house in less then 5 minutes. TeamSpeak, Discord, Groupme, etc there are plenty of off server ways to organize 200 players. Assuming that there were at least 4 power blocks arranged before USA-4 launched, those 400 players controlled the entire server. I doubt many of the 4000 accounts who thought they were joining a "new server where they could start fresh" understood they never had a chance to be part of the political domination.
-Deke
Afterwards, players with no house banner were targets for the select few that controlled the houses. It did not matter if you were in a faction, we raided your flags and took over your parishes regardless. My group was the least organized of the power blocks and we managed to lock down 3 houses early. I brought along 10-12 players from my USA-3 faction by myself. I can see a 200 account (not going into details on accounts vs. players here) power block prepared for a server launch predetermined with starting locations, players who are going to be pushed to page, other players who are standing by to join the faction created by the page, and the Houses they want to lock down.
My group had no difficulties at all populating a faction with players and locking down a house in less then 5 minutes. TeamSpeak, Discord, Groupme, etc there are plenty of off server ways to organize 200 players. Assuming that there were at least 4 power blocks arranged before USA-4 launched, those 400 players controlled the entire server. I doubt many of the 4000 accounts who thought they were joining a "new server where they could start fresh" understood they never had a chance to be part of the political domination.
-Deke
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Esoteric Paradigm
- Posts: 577
- Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2014 5:16 am
Re: The early push to Page is critical in a server launch
DekeYoungAtlanta wrote:The early push to Page is critical in a server launch. On USA-4 there were 4 or 5 off server political blocks pushing for a fast start and the race to page. Actually it was a race to multiple pages so we could create factions for the sole purpose of locking up multiple houses. I will go back and check my records, but my memory was that all 20 houses were taken inside of 3-4 days.
Afterwards, players with no house banner were targets for the select few that controlled the houses. It did not matter if you were in a faction, we raided your flags and took over your parishes regardless. My group was the least organized of the power blocks and we managed to lock down 3 houses early. I brought along 10-12 players from my USA-3 faction by myself. I can see a 200 account (not going into details on accounts vs. players here) power block prepared for a server launch predetermined with starting locations, players who are going to be pushed to page, other players who are standing by to join the faction created by the page, and the Houses they want to lock down.
My group had no difficulties at all populating a faction with players and locking down a house in less then 5 minutes. TeamSpeak, Discord, Groupme, etc there are plenty of off server ways to organize 200 players. Assuming that there were at least 4 power blocks arranged before USA-4 launched, those 400 players controlled the entire server. I doubt many of the 4000 accounts who thought they were joining a "new server where they could start fresh" understood they never had a chance to be part of the political domination.
-Deke
and that is exactly what I hate about this game.
Scrap the disgusting houe and faction system altogether.
Who the heck wants to be dominated by power control freaks.
I refuse to join any faction or house any more till some sense is restored to this abused system - it is nothing but a form of player abuse.
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meatball2k
- Posts: 2261
- Joined: Sat Dec 08, 2012 11:13 am
Re: Proposed changes to the Era rules
Its simple, era system is notworking, some things are good but many things are bad, get back to basics maybe adjust things slightly and flip up the ages, start with age 6 rules and work backwards, just make it different but I dont think the glory system is brok in uk worlds but it needs to be ammended for gc worlds where there is many king seats, people like a steady pace but in gc1 its far to quick and no time to recover from war as the ages fly by.
others just farm the entire time then will just be able to monk the last age for glory win. Fix it or lose players. When GC1 ends I think there will be mass exodus as I dont imagine many people wanting to play new era worlds.
I may be wrong but everyone I speak to seems to think the same.
others just farm the entire time then will just be able to monk the last age for glory win. Fix it or lose players. When GC1 ends I think there will be mass exodus as I dont imagine many people wanting to play new era worlds.
I may be wrong but everyone I speak to seems to think the same.
